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HUGH WYNNE. 

THE ADVENTURES OF FRANCOIS. 
HEPHZIBAH GUINNESS. 

IN WAR TIME. 

ROLAND BLAKE. 

FAR IN THE FOREST. 
CHARACTERISTICS. 

WHEN ALL THE WOODS ARE GREEN. 
A MADEIRA PARTY. 

DOCTOR AND PATIENT. 

WEAR AND TEAR — HINTS FOR THE 
OVERWORKED. 

COLLECTED POEMS. 



FAR IN THE FOREST 


a Story 


• BY 

SAVEIR MITCHELL 

M. D., LL. D. (HARVARD) 



NEW YORK 

THE CENTURY CO. 

1898 




\ wC 


TZi • 


Copyright, 1889, by 
S. Weir Mitchell, M. D. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 




the de vinne press. 




INTRODUCTION. 


Very many years before the great war, the forest 
counties of Northern Pennsylvania which border 
on New York and are watered by the Alleghany, 
Sinnemahoning, and Clarion were vast forest-lands, 
little disturbed as yet by the axe or the plough. 
Roads were few and bad. Railways were un- 
known. Here and there a primitive mill, driven 
by water-power, sawed out the planks needed for 
a scant and widely-scattered population. In the 
winter lumbering-parties were busy near the greater 
streams, and in the spring a few rafts found their 
way down to the Ohio or on the other side of the 
“ divide” to the Susquehanna. 

Along the rivers, at rare intervals, a log cabin, 
and, still farther apart, a group of houses known 
as a town, made up, with the lumber-camps, all 
that there was of human habitation. The lands 
had been taken up years before the date of my 
tale, by a few settlers, chiefly from New England 
or Eastern Pennsylvania, in the hope that the 
wealth of coal beneath the soil would one day en- 
rich them, when the iron roads should give access 
to the lake. Among these pioneers were some 


6 


INTRODUCTION. 


vigorous, enterprising men, but for the most part 
they were waifs and strays whom civilization had 
disappointed. A few who came into the woods 
together were Swedenborgians. These mysterious 
woodlands suited them. Regarded by their neigh- 
bors as strange beings, they lived on, patiently 
waiting for the better earthly good which did not 
come. The majority had no religion, or what they 
had had faded away in the absence of churches, and 
their schoolless children grew up strong as young 
pines in that untainted air. In these deep woods, 
untroubled by courts of justice, a more dangerous 
and smaller class found a sanctuary into which no 
avenging law pursued their steps. 'With lessened 
temptations and sufficient work, fish in the streams, 
and game in the woods, life was adventurous enough 
to suit their tastes, and not too difficult. Hence, 
serious crime was rare, and these rough exiles from 
the cities were less troublesome than in more con- 
ventional communities. For grave offences the 
law of the woods was swift enough, and sometimes 
even too thoughtlessly swift, in its vengeance. On 
the whole, the tone of this widely-scattered and 
sparse population was right-minded and just. A 
certain manliness was the common gift. Caste was 
unknown. Physical strength and skill with axe or 
rifle were valued as they must needs be in such a 
life. Newspapers were rarely seen, and politics 
troubled no man. 

Three years before the date of my story, Eliza- 
beth Preston had found her way with her hus- 
band into the wilderness. A great stress was upon 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


her. In body and mind she was for the time worn 
out. When but seventeen she had married, and, 
as was thought, married well. Her husband was 
rich. They had all that men desire. A few years 
in our growing land would bring their acres near 
Hew York and about Albany to such values as 
would make them feel at ease concerning the re- 
mote future. 

Paul Preston was a man who was joyous and 
companionable because fate had never given him 
cause to be otherwise, and had the restless vivacity 
of slightly-constructed character. Men of this type 
resemble in a measure certain immature feminine 
natures, and have a like attractiveness. But the 
easily pleased possess the seeds of danger in their 
facile temperaments. Pain in all its forms is as near 
as pleasure, and far more potent to influence. The 
terrible intimacy of marriage soon taught his young 
wife some sharp lessons. She saw as others had 
seen that he was always too near unhappiness, and 
soon learned that he would go to any length to 
escape annoyance or avoid discomfort. This tem- 
perament simply dooms a man if by mischance 
pain becomes for any length of time a fact with 
which he has to deal. Ho man who has not fought 
this demon knows how many other devils he brings 
with him into the house of torment. From them 
Paul Preston shrunk morally disabled. A brief but 
painful malady taught him how easy it is to escape 
from pain by the aid of sedatives. For such men 
there is no to-morrow. Renewed attacks of dis- 
ease served to fasten on him the habit which of all 


8 


INTRODUCTION. 


evil habits is most easily made and most hard to 
break, — the constant resort to opium. Once cre- 
ated, it found in Paul Preston’s nature that which 
made it impossible to escape even when the awful 
bribe of pain was gone. 

Against this foe of heart and head, — for to both it 
is fatal, — Elizabeth Preston fought the losing fight 
which a resolute and high-minded young woman 
wages in the interest of a weak masculine nature. 
It were vain to dwell on a tale so common. His 
property disappeared almost mysteriously. Trusts 
in his keeping became embarrassed and were taken 
from him. At last she knew with amazement what 
it was to want. Next she learned how surely all 
morals wilt in the presence of the habit he had 
acquired. He became at last a passive, inert being, 
and she the controlling force. Resolute to make 
one last effort at reform, she induced him, with a 
certain ease which amazed her, to spend a summer 
on a great tract of land in Northern Pennsylvania, 
which was almost the last unembarrassed possession 
left to her. Once in the woods, the autumn found 
them with so little means that to stay was easier 
than to leave, and so the years had run along and 
by degrees she had settled down to make the best 
of a bad business. She thought, and rightly, that in 
the wilderness he would be unable to secure easily 
the needed drugs; but she failed to calculate on 
the other foe which is apt to become the craving 
of the disappointed opium-eater. Whiskey was 
only too plenty about the logging-camps. To 
this he took kindly and fatally, and, enfeebled 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


by sedatives and repeated disease, fell an easy 
prey. 

She found their first summer in the woods not 
altogether unpleasant. There were at least no 
social pretences to sustain, no heedless questions 
to answer, and life was altogether gratefully uncon- 
ventional. But, as time went on, new and unlooked- 
for difficulties arose and troubled the overweighted 
woman. In his native city, Paul Preston had had 
more or less amusement and occupation ; but in 
the woods he had none, and this was a matter the 
thoughtful young wife had failed to anticipate. 
He cared nothing for the manly sports the land 
offered, and spent his time lounging about in the 
lumber-camps with a low class of men, leaving to 
his wife the burden of looking after their ruined 
affairs and of making such provision for their com- 
fort as was possible. By degrees she became ac- 
customed to take the place of both, and to direct 
the men employed to build their cabin and clear 
their fields. As to her husband, she learned each 
week a new lesson of despair, as things went from 
bad to worse. At last, by degrees, he took to his 
bed, a feeble, selfish invalid. Doctors there were 
none, and, had there been any, they would have 
been useless to Paul. 

When laid up in bed and wanting his accustomed 
stimulus, a very mild bribe procured it, and Mrs. 
Preston found it vain to remonstrate with the silent 
woman whom lack of enterprise alone induced to 
remain with them. She had come for a week, and 
had never had the energy to do more than merely 


10 


INTRODUCTION. 


talk of leaving, when reproached by her mistress 
for her willingness to supply the vicious wants of 
the husband. At last he ceased abruptly to care 
for his habitual stimulus, a fatal signal of decline. 
Elizabeth Preston saw but too clearly how near was 
the end. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


CHAPTER I. 

The snows of a grim February evening were fall- 
ing in the fine flakes which predict a long storm. 
On the broad acres of a clearing above the Alle- 
ghany River they lay thick already upon the deep 
accumulations of a severe winter. Here and there 
the furious wind had blown away the drifting 
masses and set, black against the whiteness, sharp 
outlines of burned or mouldered stumps. Beyond 
the snake fence on either side, but thinner towards 
the river, stood dense forests of pine, cherry, 
beech, and birch, weighted with cumbering masses 
of snow which fell at times as the wind roared 
through the shaken trees. 

A well-built and unusually ample log cabin stood 
in the centre of the clearing. On one side the drifts 
sloped up to the eaves and lay piled in loose, ever- 
shifting heaps under the shed which crossed the 
front of the house above the door-way. Save for a 
little smoke blown straight away from two chim- 
neys of stone, and a dim light from one window, 
the scene was comfortless and devoid of signs of 
life. Presently the door opened, and a tall woman 
came out and, trampling down the snow, stood and 
looked across the lonely clearing. She drew long 


12 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


breaths of the sharp, dry, exhilarating air. Then 
she walked to the end of the porch where the drifts 
were least heavy, and, leaning against a pillar, stood 
motionless, as if too deep in thought to feel the in- 
tense cold. In a few minutes a small rotund person 
partly opened the door and put out her head. 

“ He’s waked up now,” she said. “ Best come 
in. It’s powerful chilly.” 

“ I will be there in a minute,” returned the 
woman. “ This outside air is such a help, and I 
am so tired, Becky.” 

“ It won’t rest you none to git yer ears frost-bit, 
and I’m that wore out with keepin’ awake, I’ve just 
got to lie down if I’m to keep on spellin’ you.” 

“ I will come,” said Mrs. Preston. “ Is he any 
easier ?” 

“ Ho, ma’am ; he’s a-rollin’ over and groanin’. 
How he’s a-callin’. ” 

Mrs. Preston went in. 

The storm outside had gone from bad to worse. 
The snow sifted through the chinks under door and 
window, and without, the wind howled, scurrying 
around the lonely cabin. 

Sadly watching her husband’s uneasy sleep, she 
sat late into the night, at times thinking of the re- 
morseless past, at times rising to warm herself at 
the fire, where Becky was snoring, her chin on her 
breast. Of a sudden Mrs. Preston turned. Was 
it a sound of human life she heard? It seemed 
unlikely. 

The rare ox-roads were lost to view, and travel 
was next to impossible except on snow-shoes, while 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 13 

within the cabin death was drawing near with swift 
and certain steps. Suddenly she roused herself. 

“ What’s that, Becky ? Becky !” The woman 
looked up. “ I heard some one knock. Listen,” 
added the tired wife. 

“ Oh, it ain’t nobody.” 

Both sat down again, but in a few minutes Bessy 
Preston, as she had been called in her happier days, 
arose and took a candle, saying, “ Keep awake till 
I come back. It must be some one. I heard it 
again. There ! There ! Some one called.” 

“ Well, you won’t be easy till you see,” said the 
abrupt Becky. 

Mrs. Preston left the room, hearing as she went 
the loud breathing of the failing man. Crossing the 
larger apartment, she glanced at her boy, asleep on 
a mattress in the corner. The wind found entry 
at a dozen half-closed chinks and under the door, 
flaring her candle as she guarded it with her hand. 
She set it down on the table, and opened the door 
with difficulty. The wild wind rushing in sent the 
snow over her in clouds, and put out the light, as a 
heavy form seated propped against the door fell in- 
ward across the threshold. Seeing dimly by the blown 
light of the huge logs flaring on the hearth that it 
was a man, she bent over and tried to drag him 
into the room. Unable to succeed, she called Becky, 
and together they drew him before the fire. As the 
great logs cast their blaze on his face, the women 
saw glazed eyes, a long yellow moustache, purple 
lips, a face unlike any they knew, haggard with the 
set look of swiftly-coming death. 


14 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Quick, Becky ! Bring a bucket of snow.” Bessy 
loosened bis necktie, and cast off a fur cloak from 
his shoulders, then pulled off his gloves, and, with 
help from Becky, his long gaiter moccasins, ob- 
serving that around one of them were the deer 
thongs of the snow-shoes which he had apparently 
lost in the drifts. Then they rubbed his hands and 
feet with snow, and at last got down his throat an 
ample dose of whiskey. At intervals he drew a 
long breath, and, half an hour later, suddenly 
opened, shut, and reopened his eyes, and began to 
breathe steadily. At last he spoke. 

“Wo bin ich?” 

“ What’s that ?” said Becky. 

“ He is a German. There,” leaning over him, 
“ you are safe.” 

“Ach ! Ich bin im Himmel.” 

“ Can you speak English ?” 

“ Ach, why not ? Where am I ? I cannot see yet.” 

“ You are safe. I am Mrs. Preston. You are in 
my house.” 

“ Thank you. Ah, how comfortable it is !” 

“ It might be that Ryverus. I heerd tell of 
him,” said Becky. 

“ Hush ! I suppose so,” said the mistress. They 
continued to aid him, and at last he was able to 
rise, take off his coat, and sit up in a chair. His 
face was still haggard, his limbs tremulous. 

“ You are Mrs. Preston,” he said, after a little. 
“I am John Riverius. I started to go over from 
one logging-camp to another, and lost first my way 
and then my snow-shoes, and now but for you my 


FAR IN TIIE FOREST. 


15 


life had gone too. IIow can 1 thank you, madam ?” 
Unmistakably he was a gentleman, and the words 
of one of her own class, to which she had long 
been unused, affected her strangely. 

“Keep thanks for to-morrow, Mr. Riverius.” 
( “ What a curious name !” she thought.) “ Becky 
will get you some supper. A shake-down in front 
of the fire is the best I can offer. And now, good- 
night. I must go to my husband. He is very ill. 
Good-night.” 

He stood up with some little difficulty, took her 
hand, and, bending over, touched it with his lips. 
“ My lands !” said Becky, with the undisguised 
critical freedom of the woods. The German turned 
on her a slight look which made her uncomfortable 
for a moment, she hardly knew why. Then he 
smiled, as if remembering his near peril and the 
womanly help both had given. The look of haughty 
impatience passed like a shadowing cloud. 

“Ach, madam, if I am forbid to say my thanks, 
I shall at least be grateful in my dreams.” 

“ Certainly it is out of my power to prevent 
that,” Mrs. Preston answered, smiling. Then 
she passed into the adjoining room, whence came 
through the chinky partition the sound of long 
hoarse respirations and at times the suppressed 
tones of the watcher. 

Bessy had been very weary an hour before, but 
now the sudden fresh call upon her energies, the 
enlivenment of pity, fearful expectation, sense of 
power to rescue, had strangely tuned anew the re- 
laxed energies to possibility of healthy responses. 


16 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Had the aided man been of the rough woodsmen 
she knew so well, the task would have been as 
gladly and as perfectly done, but there would have 
been lacking the little flavpr of interested curiosity 
as to the person helped. His was a type quite 
new to her, but there are mysterious shibboleths by 
which well-bred women assign men to their true 
social place. A man of Bessy Preston’s class would 
have tardily reached her conclusion — in a day or 
two. 

She sat down by Paul Preston’s bedside, saw 
him sleep again, and, musing, went over anew the 
scene in which she had taken part. Suppose she 
had not heard. A half-hour more, and rescue 
would have been impossible. She shuddered. It 
had been a really great effort to get up and go to 
the door. Months of sad exertion, days of tears, 
entreaties, nights of watching, had brought her to 
the danger-verge of serious physical exhaustion. 
Years of vain unrewarded struggle had subdued 
her. A half-hour’s sudden success had sent through 
her an arousing sense of competence and renewed 
her faith in effort. For the time it left her very 
happy. To give always made her joyful, and she 
had, too, the royal and more rare capacity to receive 
with dignity. She was herself aware that she was 
by nature proud, — too reserved, she had always 
said, — would have liked, she suspected, to be even 
haughty had her gentler part permitted the luxury 
of such indulgence. It may have been so, but an 
immense appetite for loving had ever perplexed 
her reserve. An eager helpfulness was part of her 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


17 


nature. Where she loved, and when she gave or 
aided, a certain pleasant simplicity made it appear 
graciously natural to those on whom her bounty of 
heart or her more material givings chanced to fall. 
She had the child’s unspeculative generosity. The 
man outlives the boy. The girl is apt to survive as 
an essential part of the best womanly life. 

As Bessy Preston sat with a little innocent feeling 
of romance in her mind as to the incident which 
had just excited her, John Riverius was devouring 
his bacon and hard-tack with the voracity of a 
wolf. Meanwhile, Becky, having provided for his 
wants, deliberately seated herself and watched him 
with curiosity. She treated Mrs. Preston with a 
fair share of consideration, but for no one else had 
she the slightest regard, and she was simply a 
sturdy, domestic animal, who recognized but one 
mistress, and did her duty somewhat inefficiently. 

“ Is the Herr Preston very ill ?” said Riverius. 

“ Who ?” said Becky. 

“ Oh ! Mr. Preston.” 

“ Him !” returned Becky, pointing to the sick 
man’s room. “ Paul Preston. Yes, he’s took bad 
this time. He won’t be no loss, neither.” Becky 
saw no cause for reticence. 

Despite his knowledge of the utter frankness of 
the woods, Riverius had a slight sense of amused 
amazement. Then he reflected a moment, and 
said, softly, — 

“ Is he going to die ?” 

“ He won’t if he can help it; but he is. There 
ain’t much of him left to die with.” 


18 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


The oddity of the phrase struck the German. 
“ What does the doctor say ?” 

“ Doctor ! lie ain’t got none. He’s just a-dyin’.” 

“Do you mean that you two women are alone 
here with a dying man and with no other help ?” 

“ There’s little Paul, and he ain’t no good yet. 
He’s too small. Phil Richmond was here three 
days back, and Myry she’d come too, if the snow’d 
git harder. I’m goin’ myself then. It’s too much 
work, and they say help’s wanted bad down river, 
Pittsburg way.” 

“Acli,” said the German, rising to warm his stiff 
back at the fire. “ I haven’t thanked you yet, 
Becky.” 

“ Oh, it weren’t no trouble. I’d ’most as lief rub 
your legs as split wood.” 

He laughed quietly. “ Look here, Becky,” and 
he cast a bright gold eagle in her lap, “ you must 
not go away. Once a week I shall give you a thing 
like that, for a month, we will say, and after that 
we can talk again.” 

Becky looked at the coin, turned it over, tied it 
up in the corner of an unwholesome-looking yellow 
silk handkerchief, and put it in the sanctuary of her 
bosom. “ I’ll bide a bit,” she said, and made no 
further comment on the matter. “ Got all you was 
wantin’ ? I’m to spell her till mornin’,” she added, 
pointing to the bedroom, and, so saying, disap- 
peared by the door which opened into the sick 
man’s chamber. 

A moment later she came back, and, putting only 
her round head through the door, said succinctly,-- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


19 


“ She says you ken smoke here if you’ve a mind 
to, or in the kitchen ; ’tain’t no difference.” 

He rose at the words, as if to the personal presence 
of the woman whose message he received. 

“ Mrs. Preston is very good, — very thoughtful. 
How thinks she of others thus much in her own 
trouble ! I will, with her good permission, smoke 
in the kitchen.” 

“ Don’t you upset the clothes-horse. Ther’s 
things a-dryin’.” 

“ I shall be careful.” 

The head disappeared, and the door was closed 
with needless noise. Looking about him with a 
queer sense of puzzle, he took in the interior, — the 
birch-barked wall, warm in ruddy brown colors, the 
two silver candlesticks on the mantel. He picked 
up one, and, caught by a mark below the crest, 
brought out a loupe from his pocket and examined 
it with the interest of a connoisseur. “ The Dutch 
Lion and the arms of Leyden. About 1700, one 
would say.” And he set it down with a certain ten- 
derness. Then he noticed a print by Raphael Mor- 
ghen, and, candle in hand, glanced at it a moment, 
muttering, “ Waste of a good engraver on a poor 
picture at best.” Next he looked over the small 
row of books, and, choosing one, took it with him 
into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Un- 
doubtedly there did appear to be clothes-horses and 
innumerable garments on chair-backs and pegs, so 
that a peculiar dampness pervaded the air, which 
was at a tropic temperature owing to a big fire re- 
cently renewed. Seeing no chair unoccupied by 


20 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


some fashion of clothing, he sat down on the floor, 
with his back against a pile of logs, and carefully 
filled an ample meerschaum which he handled with 
lover-like care. He was immensely, deliciously 
comfortable. 

“ Himmel !” he said to himself, “just as one gets 
used to doing without luxury and life gets simple 
and wants grow less, one is set face to face with an 
unanswerable problem. And what can one do? 
Much obliged to you, madam, and go away. Becky 
is such a simple creditor. She can be paid. Why 
does a man hate an obligation? And I, of all men? 
I, Johann Riverius, I go. I am lost to her life, and 
there, eternally, is this debt carrying the interest 
of every agreeable thing I shall ever do or see or 
hear in the next fifty years, if I live as long as my 
fathers.” He disliked obligations, — why, he would 
have found it hard to say. Long training in self- 
reliance had bred a sturdy trust in his own compe- 
tence to deal with whatever might turn up. He 
would have hated to think that he undervalued 
human help because its need implied in him some 
lack of prudence, forethought, or force. 

Yet this was vaguely in his mind just now. “ I 
might have known the risk,” he thought. Then 
he figured to himself death, and two weak women 
struggling for victory, the field of contest his weak 
inert body. There was for Riverius a sense of 
humiliation in the matter. He faintly recalled his 
desire to resist as he had realized the idea that 
they were rubbing his feet and hands. At last he 
emptied the ashes from his pipe and stood up, a 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


21 


tall, soldierly-looking man of some thirty-two 
years. “ What can an honest man give for a life ?” 
he reflected. “ What would it fetch, and in what 
coin be paid for ? Good constitution, slightly dam- 
aged by cold. Ach !” and he laughed outright, “ I 
would hid it in pretty high.” Then he opened 
the door, saw the shake-down on the floor, and, 
without undressing, put his head on his folded fur 
coat, now dry, and was soon happily out of reach of 
the problem which his pipe had failed to help him 
solve. 


CHAPTER II. 


Riverius rose early next day, went out and drew 
water from the well, and found in the drift at the 
door his knapsack, and, so aided, made his brief 
toilet. The storm was over, the sun out, the air 
sharp and cold. Everywhere the drifts were deep, 
and travel, even with snow-shoes, was difficult, and 
without them out of the question. 

Mrs. Preston met him as he came in. She looked 
worn and pallid from her night-watch. “ Good- 
morning. I hope you feel no ill effects from your 
freeze. One has to be careful in these woods.” 

“ I am very well,” he answered, “ and so used to 
the country that I ought to be ashamed of the 
trouble I caused.” 

“ It was no great trouble. I really was the better 
for it. The necessity for sudden physical exertion 
sometimes helps one. You must make yourself as 
comfortable as you can until the crust gets hard or 
we can find you snow-shoes.” 

“ I am afraid that you are right. Ah ! is this 
your boy ?” he added, as a lad of nine entered from 
the back door. 

“Come here, Paul,” she said. “This is Mr. 
Riverius, a gentleman who will be with us a day or 
two. You must take care of him. I cannot leave 
your father long alone.” Riverius liked it that she 
gave no explanation of how he had come. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


23 

The boy came forward frankly and welcomed the 
stranger with a queer, boyish sense of being the 
host. In a few minutes they were talking of the 
drifts, and the German was describing to Paul a 
glacier, and chamois-hunting. Mrs. Preston stood 
for a little while and listened, but presently was 
summoned by Becky and went back to her husband. 
Then the German said, “Has your father been 
long ill ?” 

“ Yes, sir, a good while. Mother says he is very 
sick, and Becky says he is going to die. Do you 
think he will die ?” 

Riverius glanced at him with fresh interest. He 
was tall and neatly built, with promise of strength, 
and had the cloud-blue eyes of the mother. 

“ I do not know, my lad. What is it that he 
has ? What sickness ?” 

Paul knew but too well. He colored. “ Mother 
knows. I don’t rightly understand, sir.” 

“ Ah !” exclaimed Riverius, quickly. “ I can ask 
her. Perhaps I may be of some use.” 

“ Shall I call her?” 

“ Ho, — oh, no. Presently I will talk to her.” 

“ Here is breakfast.” 

The German stopped his hostess as she passed 
through the room an hour later. “Pardon me,” 
he said, “ but I have travelled much, and know a 
little medicine. Let me see your husband.” 

“ Ah, if you would !” she said, eagerly. “ Come 
in ; come in. He won’t know. He is worse.” He 
followed her and stood by the bed, took the cold 
hand, felt the colder feet, and looked up, drawing 


24 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


back a pace from the bed. She glanced at him 
inquiringly. He shook his head slowly. She un- 
derstood. 

“ Is he dying?” 

“ It will not be long. lie suffers not now.” 

At intervals Paul Preston ceased to breathe, 
then drew a deep draught of air, and then a less and 
a lesser, with regardless eyes staring up at the log 
rafters. By and by he moved uneasily, revived a 
little, and put forth a hand, which fell on that of 
Riverius resting on the bedside. The dying man 
shut his damp fingers on it, muttering words which 
Riverius could not understand. Both of the lookers- 
on saw the mistake, but neither stirred. “Ah,” 
said Bessy, catching the meaning of the broken 
phrases. The words called back to the woman her 
young life, its gradual extinction of joy, of energy, 
and at last of hope. Then she turned to the bed and 
stood with one palm on the moist brow, and, as if 
forgetful of any other presence, said aloud, “ Thank 
God, I never failed! Oh, Paul, Paul, did you ever 
know ” 

The German drew away quietly and walked to 
the fireplace. In a few moments she crossed the 
room to him. 

“ I think he must be dead. ’Will you see ?” He 
had been dead to her long before. There are such 
living corpses in many homes. She sat down and 
stared dully into the fire, while the chance-comer 
stood by the bed and was about to close the set 
eyes. Suddenly she was beside him. 

“ Oh, no, no ! I ! I ! Ho one else !” And tremu- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 25 

lously but resolutely she did for the dead the little 
needful office. 

Riverius went out. In the kitchen he met Becky. 
“ He is gone,” he said. 

The next day the drifts were firmer, and a man 
from a cabin across the river was sent oft* for help, 
and two or three woodsmen came in from a lumber- 
camp. Later in the morning, as Riverius stood at 
the door in the sun with Paul, he saw crossing the 
clearing a tall man and a large, fair woman, both 
on snow-shoes. 

“ Who is that ?” said the German. 

“ Oh, that’s Philetus Richmond ; he’s blind. 
Sometimes he works here. Miriam’s with him. 
She’s his wife. They live down the river a bit, a 
good bit back. — Where’s Phely?” he said to the 
woman, as they came nearer. 

“ I left Ophelia at Mr. Rollins’s camp with Mrs. 
Rollins. How is your mother, Paul ?” 

“Better, to-day. Go in, please. This is Mr. 
Riverius, Myr}\ — Philetus, this is Mr. Riverius.” 

“ I did not know you in your muffles,” said the 
German. “We have met before.” 

In a day or two Paul Preston was laid at rest 
among the pines a few hundred yards back of the 
house, and those he left behind him set about by 
degrees to readjust their lives as seemed possible or 
best. Meanwhile, Riverius had induced Philetus 
to take him in as a boarder, much to the satisfac- 
tion of his wife Miriam, and very soon to that of 
the little Ophelia. To women, Riverius showed 
his best side, and now found Mrs. Richmond kindly 


26 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


and acceptable. As to Philetus, he had met him 
often in the lumber-camps, and knew him well. 

Some three weeks later Rive ri us came to Mrs. 
Preston and said as she sat at her sewing, “ I go 
away to-morrow. I hope to be back and forward 
for a while. Will you let me ask Philetus to put up 
for me a cabin outside of your clearing ? I shall 
hope to be able sometimes to return, and then per- 
haps you will let me make some arrangement by 
which I can get my meals with you.” 

“ As you please,” she said, inertly. She was suf- 
fering from a bewildering sense of having nothing 
now to do, and from the sort of remorse such deaths 
leave to the woman who feels that she ought to be 
crushed and desolated and yet is not. 

“ Thank you,” he said, simply ; “ and when I re- 
turn, we can easily arrange the business part of it.” 
Next day he was off at daybreak. 

In the brief time since Paul Preston’s death, 
Riverius had been, as was natural, a very frequent 
guest at Mrs. Preston’s table. He provided trout, 
caught through holes in the ice, and some easily- 
gotten game, and, above all, made rapid and close 
acquaintance with the young Paul, who now reigned 
in the place of the father. 

Riverius had been at school in England and 
Prance, but nowhere had he known the kind of lad 
who now excited his ever-ready interest. It seemed 
a thing worth study, a creature at the ductile age, 
bold, mischievous, thoughtless of consequences as 
a destructive kitten, surrounded by the physical 
lures with which nature wooes us back towards 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


27 


barbarous life, and restrained and modified by the 
ever more difficult rule of a woman, the force of 
whose influence Riverius saw but could not as yet 
understand. 

The value of physical courage the German per- 
haps over-esteemed, and the boy’s fearlessness 
pleased him. The reckless fondness for dangerous 
sports and ventures attracted him. The good, well- 
taught manners and general frank pleasantness of 
the boy were to his mind, and he knew life well 
enough to guess that the dogged obstinacy of a 
clever, vain youthhood may become the reasoning 
resoluteness of the more intelligent man. It may 
by this time have been seen that Riverius was of 
those, the few, who with no ulterior object find the 
mere study of character attractive. Our own indi- 
vidualism prevents us from seeing our resemblances 
to others, and it was this, perhaps, which shut out 
from the German’s mind the idea that in many ways 
the boy was like himself, John Riverius. Also 
Paul returned his liking in kind. There is mys- 
terious and irresistible flattery in the dog you do 
not know who comes to rest his muzzle on your 
knee, and in the little one who of a sudden takes 
you into its life and shyly gives you to understand 
that you are an accepted friend. Very proud and 
reserved men often get on with boys as they do not 
with their equals in age, allow liberties, and enjoy 
with them a friendly freedom. And so it was that 
in a week or two of wandering and shooting with 
Paul, Riverius found himself talking of himself and 
his past life with an amount of ease, and even com* 


28 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


fort, that at times surprised him. As to Mrs. Pres- 
ton, he gave himself, save as to one thing, little 
thought. She was a faded woman, with handsome 
hair, certainly graceful, listless, apathetic, or self- 
absorbed in thoughts more or less painful, now and 
then beset with self-evident need to make certain 
decisions, which she feebly postponed from day to 
day. All her life she had been dutiful, and now to 
fail hurt her. She could not know T that the will in 
a too weak body is like a proud king without an 
army. A vast sense of discomfiture oppressed her, 
and all life was for the time unreal and valueless. 
Riverius knew too little of this aspect of existence 
to take in or sympathize with her peculiar state. 
She was simply a lady in trouble, and he owed her 
the infinite obligation of a life saved. She, herself, 
just now had ceased to think of it. Any woodsman 
would have been cared for, fed, and housed, just as 
he had been, and the incident was, after all, com- 
monplace in these woods, where in winter it was 
not rare that men perished of cold. 


CHAPTER III. 


Riverius was destined to remain away far longer 
than he had meant to be. It was June before he 
reappeared. Twice he had written formal letters 
of inquiry, — letters which lay in the post-office 
at Olean until some one was found who would 
promise to deliver them. Late in May, Mrs. Rich- 
mond persuaded her husband to let her go over 
with her child and stay near Mrs. Preston in the 
cabin Philetus had built for Riverius. She had the 
good sense to know how useful for the lonely forest 
child were Mrs. Preston and Paul, and for some 
little time the former had been urging them to 
come, with an increasing sense of need for other 
company than the indomitable and abrupt Becky. 
And now Paul was indeed very happy. The buds 
were everywhere unfolding, arbutus had come, and 
all the hill-sides were rich with its scent. An early 
spring had brought out the silvery dogwood-blos- 
soms so that the forest spaces were lit with their 
starry multitude, and the Judas-trees showed a 
deep pink between. 

Mrs. Preston sat on the grass with Miriam, and 
not far away Paul was building a vast pagoda with 
red and white corn-cobs, a delightful task, while on 
a stump near by the small Ophelia sat impatient at 
the lack of notice from the too-occupied architect. 

The child was in many ways a curious contrast 


30 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


to her parents, — intensely, even amazingly femi- 
nine, rather pale, or with the faintest pink in her 
cheeks, a delicately-made little person, slender of 
foot and hand, quick to see, eager to notice, inno- 
cently craving homage from those about her, and 
most of all from any male within reach of her 
devices. 

Mrs. Preston was filling a dish on her lap with 
arbutus-blossoms, and now and then regaling her- 
self with the odors of that most delicious of the 
gifts of spring. Miriam Richmond, seated beside 
her, was sewing buttons on a red flannel shirt. 
They gossiped gently of the loggers, the small 
news of the woods, of the children, and at last of 
Riverius. 

“I wonder,” said Miriam, “when he’ll come 
back?” 

“ In about three weeks, he writes. What should 
bring him here, or why he wants to stay, I really 
cannot see.” 

“He’s a right handsome man. He just stands 
up, like. Now, my Phil ain’t an ill-lookin’ man, 
but he don’t hold himself up like that Riverius.” 

“ Yes, I suppose he is rather nice-looking,” said 
the widow. “ Philetus might have been the better- 
looking; but this wood-life’s so hard on the 
men.” 

“Well, I never did see a man just like that 
German. Phil says he’s stuck up.” 

“ I know what Philetus means. It is natural to 
one of Mr. Riverius’s class, — his — well, his train- 
ing, I mean.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


31 


“ Wonder where he came from? Didn’t you 
never ask him ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Dear me ! I’m that curious, I’d want to know. 
Don’t you ?” 

“No. By the way, that reminds me that Hies- 
kill brought a letter over from Olean to-day from 
Mr. Riverius to my boy. IIovv proud Paul will he ! 
— Paul, Paul,” she cried. “ Here, my son,” she 
said, as he came, — “ here is a letter for you from 
Mr. Riverius.” 

It was the hoy’s first letter. The importance of 
the event was immense. He walked back to the 
girl and sat down on the ground. 

“ What have you got, Paul ?” she said, in a small, 
soft, caressing voice. “ Let Phely see.” 

“ Only a letter,” returned the boy, in a large, 
indifferent way. 

“ You might let me see.” 

Paul was otherwise minded. He opened it with 
care, and examined the post-mark and the large red 
seal, stamped with a coat of arms. 

“ What’s that ? — that red thing ?” 

He took no notice, but proceeded to spell out the 
not very easily read writing. 

“Paul, I’m very nice. You like me.” 

He was re-reading this important document, out 
of which he had taken a ten-dollar note and put it 
in his pocket amidst a quaint collection of hits of 
string, a broken knife, horse-hair for trout-snoods, 
and the like. 

“I’ve got a new dress.” 

3 


32 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Still no answer. Then the little maid got off 
her stump and came to his side. 

“ Me kiss you, Paul.” 

“ Oh, don’t bother !” 

Thus rejected, she went over to the corn-cob 
castle and gave it a kick. Down it came in ruin. 
She looked up with a pretty little defiant expression 
to observe what would come of it. She had won 
his attention at last. 

“ You’re a mean, bad girl !” he said. “ I’ll fix 
you.” But the little sinner was away and had her 
head in her mother’s lap before he could catch her. 

“ Paul, Paul,” Mrs. Preston said, warningly. He 
paused. “ I won’t play with her again.” And, so 
saying, he walked around the house. 

“Here, Becky,” he said, “ this is from Mr. Bive- 
rius. He says he hopes you’re a good girl, and no 
one is to know about the money. Now you mind 
that.” 

“ Oh, I’m an awful good girl,” said Becky. “ I’m 
ten dollars gooder than I was,” and plunged anew 
into the wash-tub. 

Paul went back to his ruined castle. 

“ What does he say ?” said his mother. 

“ Oh, he just says he’s coming soon, and — and 
there’s a secret. The rest’s a secret.” 

“ Tell me,” said Miriam. 

“ I guess not.” 

The two women laughed. 

“ He’ll tell me,” said the small maid. 

“ No, he won’t,” said Paul. Then she proceeded 
to assist him in the work of reconstruction, gra- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


33 


ciously handing him the corn-cobs, one by one, and 
prattling incessantly. 

“ You ought to be proud of her,” said Mrs. 
Preston. “ She is really a winning little lady.” 

“ Ophelia, — sweet Ophelia,” said the mother. 

Mrs. Preston laughed with genuine enjoyment. 
“ My young Hamlet doesn’t seem easily captured. 
What company the child is ! She really seems to 
think it her business to entertain one. When she 
gets older, you will be troubled about her educa- 
tion. I suppose thinking of Paul makes me think 
of her too.” 

“ That’s the worst of this wilderness,” said 
Miriam. “ I don’t mind its being lonely, but you 
can go away. I can’t, and Phil blind. Oh, it’s 
pretty hard to fix things.” 

“ But I can’t go away. I can live here, if this be 
life, but my lad’s future terrifies me at times; and 
he is so masterful, as Philetus says.” 

Certainly Ophelia Richmond was distinctly a 
little lady of nature’s cunning make. The good 
dame in this new land seems to have indulged her 
capricious self to the full. A rough, strong, Western 
man, a plain, fair-featured wife, and, behold, a child. 
If fortune favors him with wealth, the girl shares 
its advantages. By and by there is a handsome, 
noble-looking woman, quick to learn the ways of 
any greater world, adaptive, ready-witted, intensely 
feminine in her power, — a growth from the social 
soil of one generation, a thing elsewhere not pos- 
sible. 

The visitors were good for Bessy Preston. In 


34 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


another world, such as the widow had left behind 
her, she would never have chanced upon Miriam, 
or their ways could never have run together. Mrs. 
Richmond looked up to her with an approach to 
reverence. Circumstances in her earlier life had 
made her of necessity studious of manners, and she 
felt that if the small maid ever grew to have the 
ease and control and pleasant fashions of this 
woman, it would leave little in that direction to he 
desired. She felt herself greatly flattered by their 
friendly relation, and did not estimate how much 
of it was due to the necessities which pushed them 
into alliance. And yet Bessy liked her well, as 
she liked truth and steadfastness wherever found. 
Together they worked, taught their children, read 
a little, and lived along in company with the May- 
days, until at last Miriam went away with little 
Phelia on the ox-cart. 

Late at night a fortnight later, and early in June, 
a like rude conveyance came to a halt at the door 
of Riverius’s cabin, having been sent to the river to 
meet his canoes. Riverius opened the door, went 
in, struck a match, and, seeing a candle, lit it. 
“Ach, Himmel!” he exclaimed. The bed was 
neatly made. There were four or five rough seats. 
Nets were tacked in the window-openings, an indis- 
pensable comfort. On the table were fresh rolls 
and cold bacon, and to one side a few flowers, be- 
lated arbutus chiefly, in a common soup-plate. For 
the first time he smelled the loveliest of wild 
flowers. The odor affected him curiously, and 
those who have not his intensity of appreciation 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


35 


would find it hard to realize how it acted upon him. 
He felt faint for a moment, and then, again smelling 
the flowers, had a sense of joy he did not analyze. 

“ Ach, that was friendly ,” he said, and so went 
to bed, leaving his bundles and trunks out in the 
moonlight, and feeling perfectly at ease as to their 
safety. 

When next morning at six he passed over the 
dewy clearing to breakfast at Mrs. Preston’s, he 
saw of a sudden something which surprised him. 
Out of the door came to welcome him a tall woman, 
whom at a distance he did not instantly recognize. 
“ She walks well,” he said to himself. And it was 
true. There was ease, and for him some sense of 
strength with grace, or rather graciousness, in her 
steps. “ It is Mrs. Preston,” he exclaimed to him- 
self. There was a slight color in her cheeks, a little 
more flesh everywhere. The great coil of hair 
above the cloud-blue eyes mysteriously suited the 
face below and brought out the vivid red of the 
geranium spray her boy had laughingly set in its 
coils a few moments before. Remembering when 
and under what circumstances they had last parted, 
she set herself with a faint sense of sudden em- 
barrassment to look grave. The grim death-bed, 
the fierce resolute contest with another death, which 
had seemed as near the fair blond and manly visage, 
and then the German as she recalled him in the 
scattered sunlight beside the grave, under the 
pines, came back to her in succession. She was 
shocked, actually shocked, because, with all, there 
was an overtone in her mind of satisfaction in see- 


3 * 


36 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


ing this stranger. In fact, she was yet young, full 
of unexhausted resources, and, without distinctly 
knowing it, had begun anew to have the instinctive 
craving for the company of others of her own class 
and tastes and manners. She saluted him with a 
certain sobriety of greeting which did not quite 
fairly represent the satisfaction she had in a new 
face and intelligent society. “ Paul will be very 
glad to see you,” she said, giving him her hand. 

At the breakfast-table he chatted gayly, talking 
of the people he had seen in and about Pottsville, 
and of the vast coal resources in its neighbor- 
hood. He had brought with him, to Bessy’s de- 
light, many books and some comforts for his own 
cabin and hers. 

“ I shall be back and forward,” he said, “ and it 
is a pleasant thing to feel that one has a home. 
How shall we settle our business affairs ? I want to 
own my cabin and a few acres around it.” 

Bessy laughed. “ It would be hard to value. 
The best pine is mostly cut, and really, Mr. Riverius, 
it is of no importance. I am only too well pleased 
for Paul’s sake to have you near us when you are in 
these parts.” 

“Well, then, I am to be your tenant, and we 
shall have to set a rent.” 

“ That will answer,” she said, glad to be rid of 
the question. “ You can think over what will be 
right. Whatever you say will satisfy me.” 

“ I will consider it,” he returned, gravely. “ Becky 
will look after my cabin, and I shall pay her.” 

“ As you choose.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


37 


“ I ought to add that you will find me trouble- 
some. I must ask you to keep my letters or re- 
address them according to what directions I may 
give. It seems a good deal to ask, at least for one 
who has only the claim of being already deep in 
your debt.” 

“ You make too much of my small service. I 
shall be glad to do whatever I <?an.” 

“ The giver may readily forget,” he returned. 
“ For my own part, and speaking with entire frank- 
ness, I know that if life be anything I owe it to 
you. I am young enough to value it, I assure you ; 
and, if you will put yourself in my place, you will 
see that I may with reason feel a certain embarrass- 
ment.” 

She understood him, and liked the feeling he 
showed. “ I can’t very well realize what I have 
never felt,” she said, and then, more lightly, “ nor 
can I rearrange the chess-board of life and leave 
you with no sense of obligation. Let it suffice that 
I am glad to have helped you and that you feel 
it does not make me less pleased. I said once that 
I would have done the same for any one; but I 
may plainly admit that I would rather have done it 
for one of my own class than for Ance Yickers, or 
even Philetus.” 

“ That is all very well, but it does not quite dis- 
pose of the matter for me. One often reads or 
hears of cases where a person saves another’s life, 
and I have often wondered, in hearing or reading of 
such instances, how the obliged person felt and 
what he was called on to do.” 


38 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I see the difficulty ; but I imagine many people 
do not feel the debt as you seem to do.” 

“ As I do.” 

“ Well, then, as you do.” And she laughed. “ I 
accept your amendment. But really you make too 
much of it.” 

“ No.” Then he paused, and added abruptly, “ I 
hate debts that never can be cancelled.” 

“ That is hardly a noble sentiment. Pardon my 
criticism.” 

“ Well, take it for a mere weakness, and forgive 
its folly.” 

“ I think you had better deal with it yourself,” 
she answered, smiling. “ You forget that I am a 
woman, alone, without friends, a waif drifted off 
from my own kind. You can give me what I value 
and shall find helpful, — a friendship. My life has 
been, as you know, a failure. Surely you can see 
that the accident which brought you to my door 
also brought me help in a day of great trouble. I 
am already repaid.” 

“ You are more than kind, Mrs. Preston.” 

Then he took his rifle and went away into the 
woods with Paul. Mrs. Preston stood at the door, 
following them with her eyes as they went. The 
German had given a fresh flavor to her life, and of 
late, from Philetus, Miriam, and the woodsmen who 
at times paused at her door, she had heard many 
comments on the man who had come among them 
and acquired large interests and whose ways and 
manners were not altogether to the taste of the 
lumber-camps. To Elizabeth Preston it was clear 


tAR IN THE FOREST. 


39 


that he was highly educated, a gentleman, with the 
reserve of his class. The fact that he was too posi- 
tive at times to he popular with the dwellers in the 
forest was also plain to her. That he was calmly 
kind and helpful, she also felt; but he was never so 
long with them as to enable her to learn more, 
even if her own nature had not made the task diffi- 
cult. 

With Paul he was on much easier terms. He 
liked to teach him, to talk to him, and to have him 
with him in his restless wanderings in the almost 
trackless forest about them. Certainly his company 
was good, and helpful for her boy. How and then 
he spoke of leaving, and of the need to be absent 
long ; but, save for brief journeys to the little towns 
in Hew York, he seemed to be intently busy with 
land and lumber interests. In fact, he liked the 
life, and by degrees had gone into large purchases 
which agreeably occupied his time and attention, 
so that he was beginning seriously to contemplate 
a permanent residence in the new country. 


CHAPTER IV. 


On a quiet noon of a warm day in July, Paul sat 
on a tall stump in the woods, his interest and at- 
tention divided between Philetus and the pungies, 
black flies and mosquitoes. 

“ Them pungies must be awful thick, Paul, the 
way you’re a-slappin’ ’em. Git up and build a 
smudge.” 

The boy rose. He smiled pleasantly, and, look- 
ing about with a pair of observant eyes, replied, as 
he gathered some dry sticks and piled on them a 
little rotten and damp wood, “ I’d like to know 
what pungies are for, anyway. I wish I had them 
all in a bag on top of this lire. I guess they 
wouldn’t be missed, — not much.” And he struck 
a match with emphasis on the back of his polished 
and not over-clean corduroys. 

The dark pungent smoke rose up to windward of 
the tall man, and swirled around bis broad shoulders. 
He smiled, and, as he turned, it was seen that his 
eyes were dark and the pupils strangely dilated. 
A huge, gray, tangled beard hid his mouth, but 
the nose was large and bold, the forehead massive, 
and the ears stood out like small wings. 

“ I guess maybe pungies is puzzled to know what 
boys is for. When you know what rattlers is for, 
ma} T be the Lord ’ill let you know why pungies 
bother small boys. To keep ’em awake, maybe.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


41 


“I’m wide enough awake,” said the lad; and, 
in fact, he looked it. 

“ W ell, I don’t say you don’t use your eyes. Keep 
on a-usin’ ’em. I used mine pretty well when I had 
’em, and I ain’t sorry, neither.” The lad made no 
reply, and the man presently added, “ That’s the 
wust of havin’ no eyes; makes a man use his 
tongue sich a lot. There’s a heap of talk a man’s 
eyes kin do, and git answers accordin’, without 
sich eternal tongue-chatter.” Then he paused a 
moment. “Ef I could see, I wouldn’t have to 
wonder what makes you so quiet like.” n 

A look of interested contemplation had mean- 
while grown on the lad’s face as he regarded the 
strong blind Samson still leaning on his axe- 
handle. “I was thinking,” and he paused, — “I 
was thinking how sorry I am for you, and — and 
how bright and nice it is out here.” 

His companion caught his meaning instantly. 
“ You allers did like me, Paul : I knowed that the 
first day I seen you. I don’t mind bein’ pitiful fur 
boys and women. As fur men, ’fore a man pities me 
he’d best see ef he kin fall thirty-three pines in a day 
and run a bob-sled to beat Philetus Richmond.” 

“ But you can’t break a jam now, Uncle Phil.” 
Most of his fellows called him Uncle Phil, in gentle 
instinctive recognition of his forest rank and general 
kindliness of relation to the young. 

“ You hadn’t oughter said that. Don’t you go to 
tell folks things they knows a derned sight too well.” 

The lad’s face, prone to signal feeling, fell. He 
hitched up what he called his galluses (Anglice, sus- 


42 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


penders). The pair were quick of mental touch, 
and had some remote and one-sided kinship of 
moral structure. 

“Lumber Bill was telling us last night how you 
found the key to the log-jam on the Sinnemaho- 
nino; and broke it when there wasn’t one of those 
Smethport chaps dared try it. That’s what made 
me say it, Uncle Phil. I’m sorry. I might have 
guessed.” 

“Well, Paul Preston, I didn’t mind, — much. 
Cur’us how a thing comes into a fellow’s mind 
and kind of squeezes out another thing he needn’t 
of said. Don’t you be afeerd of sayin’ soft things 
to folks that’s down. Not that I’m down much. 
You’re like that there mother of yourn. I guess 
most real fellows has a gal’s heart somewhere. 
Where’s that other axe ? Fetch it, lad. This ’ain’t 
no edge.” 

Paul brought the axe, and sat down again on the 
stump and fought the midges, while he silently 
watched Philetus. The woodsman rolled his sleeves 
up over a pair of tawny, knotted arms, threw down 
his ragged straw hat, whirled the blue steel around 
his head, and smote deep into the stately pine 
against which he had been leaning. Blow followed 
blow with marvellous precision. The fragments of 
odorous pine flew far and wide, the solid trunk 
rang resonant through its dense core, and the 
branches above shivered as if conscious. By and 
by he had cut two-thirds through the great bole. 
Then he paused. 

“ Look sharp,” he said. “ I give Irm three more 


tAR IN THE FOREST. 


43 


licks, and then look out. He’ll fall north, among 
them birches. Guess that’ll clear him. Ther’ ain’t 
no pines to stay him.” 

A look of increasing interest crossed the boy’s 
face as he spoke : “ How do you know the north, 
Uncle Phil ?” 

The giant laughed as he bent his head and wiped 
against his rolled-up red sleeve the sweat of his 
brow. “ What ! you’ve been a year or more round 
these woods and don’t know the moss likes the 
north side of trees ?” And, as he spoke, he patted 
the slightly swaying bole. 

“I did know it, but I forgot you could feel it 
just as well as I can see it.” 

“ Ef I lived long enough, I do believe I’d git eyes 
at them finger-ends. Perhaps you’d like to know 
how I guess three licks ’ill make a dead tree of this 
here pine ?” 

The boy smiled. “ I was thinking that. How do 
you guess so, Uncle Phil ?” 

“Heerd your mind, maybe. You come here. 
How you jus’ listen. Put your head nigh that tree. 
There, ag’in’ it. Ain’t it speakin’ ?” 

The boy was aware of creaking, crackling sounds, 
as the south wind moving the vast height of the 
pine broke fibre after fibre of the slight wedge- 
shaped base on which it still rested. A faint sense 
of something akin to pity seized the lad as he 
looked up at its warrior pride of clean-limbed trunk 
and wholesome leafage. He was not yet old enough 
to capture the fleeting reasons for his faint emotion. 

“Kind of groans, I call ’em,” said Philetus. 


44 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Then his face changed, and it was singularly ex- 
pressive. Something of the rough primitive wood- 
king grew upon it, — a wild joy in destruction. 

“ Wish I could see him smash them gay birches ! 
Can hear it, anyways.” 

“ I didn’t ask what made you know they’re 
birches.” This lad was to lose nothing in life for 
lack of a questioning tongue. 

“I heerd ’em, Paul. ’Ain’t they got ragged 
britches, them birches? — and don’t I hear the 
rags flap ? Every feller oughter be blind ten years 
and deaf ten more, and then git his eyes and ears. 
He’d know a heap, I tell you he would. Don’t the 
wind talk diff’rent in a pine and a beech and a 
poplar? You jus’ shet yer eyes and git that ther’ 
language. How look sharp. Them birches don’t 
guess what’s a-comin’. It’s me or the Lord Almighty 
as has doomed ’em. These many years ’twas so set 
as I was to do it, and they was to bide it.” This 
musing, half-mystical mood, the outcome of a par- 
tially-forgotten creed, was at times common enough 
with Philetus to astonish his comrades, but not so 
completely as it would have done a like class else- 
where. He went on, “ ’Most always it is three 
goes or nine, — I disremember.” Then he added, 
“ ’Tain’t fair to be talkin’ sich wisdom to boys. 
Only you mind, when you git older, thet ther’s a 
man named Swedenborg that knowed things and 
critters and rocks inside their great-coats, and don’t 
you go to thinkin’ Pm a-talkin’ nonsense, when 
you can’t take it in.” 

The lad stood puzzled, but respectful and silent. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


45 


He had in after-years the habit of saying nothing 
when he had nothing to say, and, being of a widely 
curious appetite for knowledge, had the mental art 
of the attentive listener. 

After a pause Philetus said, “ You don’t under- 
stand.” 

“ Ho, I don’t.” 

“Wall, you’d like to. That’s goin’ to be your 
kind; but ther’s growed-up people jus’ laughs and 
says Pm out of their depths. When I see a man in 
two foot water yellin’ for help and thinkin’ he’s out 
of his depth because he ’ain’t got the judgment to 
stan’ up on the legs God giv’ him, it makes me 
mad. How fur it. Git back a piece.” 

Paul retreated, and with eager interest watched 
the strokes of doom. Once, — twice, — thrice; the 
forest rang to the blows. The great sheaf of green 
bowed as the south wind swayed it, stood erect 
again, then bent its proud state as never once before 
to storm or cumbering snows its strength had 
bowed. Slowly as a monarch with no haste of fear 
lays his head upon the block, it moved to its fall. 
Then, with a strange noise of cracking fibres below 
and swifter motion above, the tall shaft fell with a 
crash, amidst innumerable lesser sounds of the torn 
branches of down-tumbled birches and the quick 
swish of beaten leaves. The woodman leaned on 
his axe. 

“ I done that there job well. I kin handle an axe 
yet, Paul Preston. My strength ain’t much abated.” 

“It was splendid, Uncle Phil. I wish I could 
chop like you !” 


46 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“You’ll chop with them brains of yourn some 
day, I guess. What was’t that man at your house 
said? Somethin’ ’bout choppin’ logic. For all he 
was two weeks in my house, I never kin call him 
rightly.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Piverius,” cried the hoy, laughing. “ I 
think he meant just arguing, you know.” 

“ That ain’t your kind nuther, younker. You’ve 
got the same way your mother’s got of bearin’ 
things out to the end of ’em, and then a-sayin’ 
somethin’ short and quick. I don’t like that there 
man much. He’s too sot in his ways. He’s the 
kind hangs about women. I never cum home he 
ain’t a trapseyin’ ’round, talkin’ to Myry. Guess 
he’d ’a’ died ef it hadn’t ’a’ bin for Mrs. Preston. 
Couldn’t of knowed much, anyway, to git in a 
scrape like that.” He had a fine sense of the 
humiliation there was in the fact of the man he 
disliked having needed help from a woman. 

“Well, he knows a lot,” urged the hoy, de- 
fensively, remembering much kindly helpfulness 
and their frequent talk of other lands and the 
greater world Paul longed to see. 

“ Yes, he knows inside of books. He’s got a no- 
tion God ain’t writ nuthin’ but books. I say God 
writ in the souls of men ; and when you hears a 
man talkin’ wisdom, that’s nigher truth than books 
is.” 

“But suppose a man puts his wisdom into 
hooks?” pleaded the boy. “Isn’t that the same, 
Phil?” 

“ ’Tain’t got the life in it.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


47 


“ Oh !” said the hoy, puzzled, and taking time to 
reflect. 

“ I alius did wonder what fetched that ’ere man 
up into these here woods. It’s nigh about two 
years since he come. He must own a power of 
land round about. He’s got judgment ’bout land, 
but he ain’t got none ’bout men. He’s too much 
boss for Philetus Richmond.” 

Paul was silent. He knew well enough that the 
German’s abrupt soldierly methods were foreign 
and repugnant to the woodmen he employed. 

“ How you go call ole Consider,” said Philetus. 
“ I’ve been a-hearin’ his axe this half-hour. What 
did I say call for? You might as well call the dead.” 

“ I’ll bring him,” said Paul, and went away at 
a trot through the woods. Presently he came upon 
a small, rather stout man of some fifty years, who 
was busy passing a tape-measure around a tree. 
He did not move until the boy touched him. Then 
he turned a clean-shaven face, simple and honest in 
expression, but remarkably sweetened by the smile 
that now lit it up. Speech was useless with him. 
He was utterly deaf ; but the boy, evidently accus- 
tomed to his needs, pointed towards the place he 
had left, and, laughing, pulled at the man’s sleeve 
and slapped his own stomach. 

“ Grub-time, and Philetus waitin’. I’ll come. 
Hold on a bit.” 

He ended his task, pocketed his tape, lifted his 
axe, and moved away silent. As they came near 
Philetus, he said, with a curious softness in his 
tones, — 


48 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“Kep’ you bidin’ a bit, ears/’ The deaf man 
smiled. “Old eyes won’t hear, Paul,” added the 
blind woodman. “Come along. He’ll foller. Bella’s 
a good clock. Mine gits fast nigh feedin’-time.” 

Consider came after them with a sort of quiet 
patience, and now and then dropped a remark to 
his friend. The pair made a queer couple. Years 
before, over a log camp-fire, and then in the woods, 
they had formed a friendly and useful partnership 
in life to which one brought eyes and the other ears. 
They usually bargained to work together, and in fact 
were rarely long apart, the smaller man, with his 
round simple visage and pug-like tilt of atrophied 
nose, being little more than a trusty canine guide to 
the stanch, blind man, away from whom he had 
the restlessness of a creature who misses his master. 

“ Take care of that felled tree, Phil,” he said. 

“ All right, Consider. Come along.” He spoke 
always turning his face to his friend, who was quick 
to catch his meaning. “ I hear the horn at Widder 
Preston’s. Mus’ be that small Becky, or the man 
— Pve forgot his name ag’in, Paul.” 

“Think of the Alleghany,” laughed the lad, 
“ Riverius.” 

“ Dern sech a name ! He don’t git much breath 
into that ’ere horn.” And as he spoke they came 
into the stumps of the clearing, and saw the river 
sparkling beyond the log cabin, and in the fore- 
ground, on a stump, a short woman’s figure, blow- 
ing with much effort a long tin horn which gleamed 
in the strong noonday light. The two woodmen 
and the boy paused a hundred yards away at the 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


49 


snake fence which kept the cows in their pasture- 
field. Meanwhile, to the left, the figure on the 
stump blew again another blast, unaware that the 
persons she was thus signalling were close at hand. 
Even to the lad’s accustomed eye there was some- 
thing humorous in this stout little creature bal- 
ancing herself now and then with outstretched 
arms on the sloped stump-top. 

The two men as they presently climbed the snake 
fence came to a rest for a moment on the upper 
rail. The elder man — and he may have been sixty- 
five years — had some half-felt sense of fun in the 
notion of the fat little person thus innocently posed 
on the forest pedestal of a blackened pine stump. His 
dog-like companion, now sunning his bald round 
head, with his toes tucked into the third rail of the 
fence for comfortable stay, understood all this well 
enough, and had a canine capacity for accepting the 
moods of his friend. His perceptions came slowly, 
but were true enough, and his round head wagged 
responsive as the dog’s tail, in cheerful, quite honest 
applause and acceptance of whatever came to him 
from Philetus. He glanced now in his habitual 
way at the strong, sombre, blind visage lit up for the 
moment with a smile, and then looked anew at the 
dark figure exhausting its breath on the horn. He 
had, unlike his friend, whose humor was rather 
grim, a natural but tardy sense of the mirthful 
aspects of life. Slowly now a grin drew out the 
corners of his mouth and spread smooth the con- 
venient little furrows which fell from them and were 
as comfortable scuppers darkly indicative of leakage 


50 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


from excessive quid within. In a moment or two 
the gathering fulness of amusement puckered the 
fat cheeks and half shut the eyes, and he chuckled 
aloud. The giant leaning on the fence looked up 
with his changeless areas of dark eyes. As usual, he 
made haste to complement his comrade’s defect, — 
a process now become with both men automatic in 
less as well as greater matters. 

“Must look ridikelus, to see a woman bustin’ 
herself like that ’ere and gittin’ no kind of decent 
sound.” He patted the small man on the leg to call 
his attention, and then expanded his own cheeks in 
sign of appreciative comment. Then he twitched 
Consider ’s sleeve, which was at once comprehended 
as a desire for descriptive help from his partner’s 
eyes. 

“ She’s a-rockin’ on that there burnt stump nigh 
the well. Guess Gabril couldn’t blow no harder. 
And she don’t see us, — she don’t,” which last fact 
so convulsed the small man that at length the graver 
woodman of a sudden broke into a laugh which 
was volcanic and astounding in its vigor and was 
heard far and near. 

“He’s a-laughin’ awful, Paul. I feel the fence 
shake,” said Consider. “ Mostly I kin fetch him.” 

At the sound Becky came down awkwardly from 
the stump, and, after hanging the tin horn on a nail 
under the cabin eaves, walked to the door-way, 
whence came out, also summoned by the giant’s 
laugh, Mrs. Paul Preston. She bent to break off a 
dead leaf or two from the little bed of geraniums 
on either side of the door-stone, and then stood 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


51 


still in the entrance to meet the workmen and her 
boy. A gray linen dress fitting closely her arms 
and figure, with no excess of skirts, showed her 
rather unusual height and notable but not unwhole- 
some slightness of build. The features, delicate of 
model, were largely fashioned. The complexion was 
less pale than it had been a year ago. An unusual 
mass of dark-brown hair was coiled with neatness 
on the back of her head, which carried its weight 
well. Thinness does not exclude the chance of that 
grace which is often denied to the essential fulness 
of beauty; and grace she had, in motion, voice, and 
ways. As she rose up from her little task, she glanced 
quickly at her hands, hard with labor, but scrupu- 
lously clean to the broken but spotless nails, and 
then smiled, seeing a spot or two on the long white 
apron she wore. Turning back, she undid its tie, 
threw it on a chair-back, and, coming out to the 
cabin door again, awaited the arrival of the little 
group which had paused on the way. 

As the two men and Paul crossed the clearing, 
they were joined by the German as to whom Phile- 
tus had so distinctly expressed himself to Paul. His 
straight carriage, and the long amber-tinted mous- 
tache on a face otherwise clean-shaven, made sharp 
contrast with the slouching, careless figures of the 
two woodmen. He gave them a cheerful good-morn- 
ing, touching Paul in an affectionate way on the 
shoulder. Ills manner was frank and pleasant, and 
gave no note of the decisive abruptness he carried 
into affairs or with which he issued orders to those 
whom he instinctively treated as more or less in- 


52 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


telligent machines. He was probably well aware 
both of the peculiarity of his manner and of its un- 
fitness for the men about him ; but the ways and 
habits of command are difficult to forget, and he 
made less effort to change them than was perhaps 
wise or politic. 

“Let me carry your rifle, sir,” said Paul, and 
proudly shouldered the gun. “ What a lot of 
squirrels you’ve got !” he added. 

“ Clean shot,” said Consider Kinsman, handling 
them as they lay where the hunter had dropped 
them at his feet. “ Two on ’em barked,” he added, 
in the high-pitched voice of the deaf. “ They 
oughter all on ’em been barked.” 

“ That is so,” said Riverius. “ Becky will growl 
at the state they are in.” 

“ Kill any rattlers ?” said Consider. “ They’re 
thick as midges down Laurel Mountain way.” 

“I never kill them. Why you men always 
murder them I cannot see. They never attack 
you unless you come too near. They don’t run. 
They are as brave as any of you.” 

Consider gave it up, unable to follow. 

“ You’re ag’in’ Scriptures, Mr. Ryverus,” said 
Philetus. “ The seed of the woman’s got to bruise 
the sarpent’s head. It was so set in the beginnin’.”. 

“I admit the order, but decline to obey,” returned 
the German, smiling. “Even your friend Sweden- 
borg doesn’t insist on it.” 

“ It’s for a flesh sign of evil. Them that don’t 
slay it for a livin’ sin, they’re a-goin’ to let it live 
in the spirit.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


53 


“ Well, Philetus, the rattlesnake as a scapegoat 
is certainly a novelty. A dozen or so a day ought 
to give a man a pleasant margin of wickedness. 
Do you take size into account? — There’s Becky. 
Pick up the squirrels, Paul.” 

Philetus made no reply. He disliked greatly to 
have his mystical fancies lightly regarded. He 
liked as little the precision of thought with which, 
in his graver mood, Riverius met and overthrew 
his theories. The woodman’s age and reputation 
for former prowess with axe and rifle caused the 
rough men of the woods to listen with mere in- 
difference or show of attention to Philetus when 
in his moods of obscure reflection and as obscure 
statement, but in the German these raised a smiling 
comment or aroused him to distinct attack, neither 
of which Philetus liked. 

At the door Mrs. Preston met them, the men 
moving away towards the well. “ You have been 
fortunate,” she said to Riverius, glancing at the 
squirrels Paul carried. 

“ Yes, I had a pleasant tramp.” 

Then she turned to the boy. “ Where are the 
eggs ?” she said. 

“ I did not go for them, mother.” 

“ And why not? When you left me, I told you 
to go to Mrs. Richmond’s. There is not an egg in 
the house.” 

“ Philetus said it was no use, mother. The foxes, 
he says, have scared them so they don’t lay worth 
a cent.” 

“ But I told you to go.” 


54 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I know, mother ; but what was the good ?” 

“ Well, and what do you propose to do about 
it?” 

“ Why, there isn’t anything to do.” 

“ Indeed !” she said, quietly. 

He cast a shy, embarrassed look up at her face. 
It was grave, and as stern as gentle nature let it be. 
He got no comfort from his study, and went away 
in silence around the cabin. 

Meanwhile, Consider let down the bucket on its 
balanced pole into the shallow well, and presently 
both workmen, having partaken of water within 
and without, went to the kitchen door, back of 
which, on a permanently-placed roller, hung a 
rough towel, of which each made use. When 
they looked out, the boy was not in sight, but the 
mother with Riverius was waiting for them at the 
well. 

“ Philetus Richmond,” she said, “ you should 
not have kept that boy from doing what I told him 
to do.” 

Truth was a part of the old fellow’s essential life. 
He answered, frankly, “Well, ma’am, fact was, 
I were a mawsel lonesome, not havin’ Consider 
handy, and — well, the foxes has bin a-furagin’.” 

“ It must not happen again,” she said. 

“Ho, ma’am,” he returned, meekly, while the 
deaf man looked from one to the other, puzzled. 

“ Come in to dinner,” she added, and, as they 
followed, Riverius approached her. 

“ Where is Paul ?” he said. 

“ I do not know. I am vexed with him. All 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


55 


the men spoil him. I must get him away from 
here.” 

“ I will go over this afternoon and bring what 
eggs there are.” He spoke with a barely percepti- 
ble German accent, and the tones were refined. 

“ Ho,” she said. “ Come in. Becky is away, so 
I cooked myself: indeed, myself is pretty well 
cooked. As to the potatoes, I am in doubt ; but 
Becky made the pie. Come in.” 

The log house was comfortable enough. Within, 
the walls were clay-plastered to fill the chinks, and 
then covered with splints or axe-hewn boards from 
the outer side of logs. Over these, in the rather 
ample sitting-room, Mrs. Preston, with aid from 
Paul, had laboriously tacked large rolls of ruddy 
and gray birch-bark. Bough planks across the 
timbers gave the unusual luxury of a ceiling, like 
the walls birch-covered, above which in the loft 
slept Paul, except when the winters drove him to 
sleep below in the common sitting-room. A huge 
fireplace of unhewn granite rocks projected from 
the farther wall. Above, on a chimney-plank, were 
the two candlesticks which had attracted the Ger- 
man’s notice. The chairs were ugly and solid; the 
table, a product of some woodcraftsman’s tools, was 
strong and grimly useful. In curious contrast, the 
Baphael Morghen of Guido’s Crucifixion hung in a 
worn frame on the wall, the sole ornament. Here 
and there, however, on the birch-bark, a brush of 
unusual skill had been busy, and had scattered 
about, in odd caprice, admirably-rendered portraits 
of golden-rod, asters, dogwood-blossoms, and cardi- 


56 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


nal flowers. Over the chimney a mass of sheep- 
laurel and the larger rhododendrons was still 
unfinished. All were dimly visible by the light 
which entered scantily through gnarled panes of 
glass which distorted the landscape without into 
singular deformity. On one side opened the 
bedroom of the owner, and outside was a rough 
kitchen, above which the woman Becky slept, 
unless the intense cold of winter drove her, like 
Paul, to a shake-down on the floor of the room be- 
neath. However primitive, this was probably the 
best house for miles around, and its owner a person 
socially and in education far above any of her 
neighbors. 

The table was spread, not in the kitchen, as usual, 
but in the sitting-room, to escape the heat which a 
July day made more than sufficient. There was 
no cloth. A dish of trout, a bit of bacon with 
eggs, the potatoes as to which Mrs. Preston had 
expressed doubts, an apple-pie, set all at once on 
the well-scrubbed board, made up the meal. As 
they stood a moment, Riverius stroked his tawny 
moustache, looked up and said aloud, with distinct- 
ness, “ Give us this day our daily bread.” Then 
they sat down. The silver forks marked with a 
worn crest alone distinguished the meal from that 
of any forest home on the swift Alleghany. Phi- 
letus took his fork in his fist, with a certain awk- 
wardness, and mentally surveyed the instrument, 
wishing that he had what he called a real fork. 
Consider helped him with care, at times glancing 
at the plate to see that he had enough. The 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


57 


meal went on rather quietly; a sense of entire 
social equality was the forest custom, and employer 
and employed lived and ate together in a common 
life of mutual respect, but almost absolute famili- 
arity of relation. A certain undefined quality in the 
ways and manners of Mrs. Preston was, however, 
felt and acknowledged by the rough men with 
whom she was so much in contact. Her husband 
when alive was to them simply Paul Preston, and, 
little as he relished the fashion, soon gave up all 
form of protest; but his wife was Mrs. Preston to 
all, and, to some of the older Hew-Englanders, 
Madam, after the now extinct usage, a survival of 
colonial days. It amused her a little, but she did 
not dislike the distinction. 

“ Where is that boy ?” at last said Riverius. “ He 
has a fierce young stomach. Shall I call him ?” 

“ Ho,” said the mother. “ I would rather not.” 

Consider, as usual, seeming to know what was 
going on, caught at the name. “Might Paul go 
with me to ketch hell-benders Saturday? I’ve been 
a-promisin’ him. I know whar ther’s a lot on ’em.” 

She shook her head. 

“ What are hell-benders, please ?” said Riverius. 
“ Certainly the name does not assist one.” 

“ Sorter small dragon beast, lives in the mud,” 
answered Philetus. 

At this moment the lad broke into the room, his 
eyes a little red, his face flushed. “ Keep me some 
dinner, mother. I’m going over to Miriam Rich- 
mond’s after those blessed eggs.” 

She rose up and kissed him. 


58 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ And some pie, mother.” 

She sat clown. “ Where’s your hat, Paul ?” 

“ Oh !” he said, smiling, and doffed his head- 
cover. “ Good-by.” 

At the door he looked back, and the two pair of 
cloud-blue eyes met and said to one another, “ We 
understand : unpleasant, this, but necessary.” 


f 


chapter y. 


A moment later Paul was away, gayly jumping 
the stumps as he went, and with a keen desire for 
the dinner he had left behind. Once past the 
snake fence, he left the ox-road, and without hesi- 
tation passed into the dense forest. Presently he 
stopped, took off his jacket, undid the suspenders, 
and, using them as a strap to sustain the coat and 
compress the expostulatory cravings of a boy’s 
empty interior, set off again at a steady trot with- 
out hesitation through what would have been for 
a city-bred boy a pathless wilderness. There was 
much of the mother in the lad, and this perhaps 
made it easier for her to influence him than it 
would have been for any one without a personal 
key to the complicated lock of character. Some 
boys are best in the hands of men, but there are 
others who prosper better when controlled by 
women who understand them and whose natures 
admit of none of the compromises to which men 
are more apt to be subject. The lad was of a cer- 
tain resoluteness which grew to obstinacy in the 
face of opposition. Active resistance excited him 
into unreason, but the passive feminine steadiness 
of a woman merely stopped him like a wall which 
arrests one but is not actively antagonistic. Then 
always, soon or late, his passionate admiration for 
the mother and his warm affection did the rest. It 


60 


FAR IN THE FOREST 


was well for him that the life of cities was to come 
later. He was fortunate in that friendly Nature 
took a hand in his education. Existence in this 
wild land was hard, but awakened no passions, had 
no feeders for the personal pride from which reso- 
lute and yet refined characters may suffer under 
the influences of social and other forms of adversity. 
The people about him were mostly adults, and too 
plainly his superiors in one and another way for 
comparison. He had, like all hoys worth anything, 
his childish ideals, and in one or another of those 
near him found enough for good example. 

He paused a minute to breathe as he crossed a 
deserted clearing and passed near a ruined cabin. 
Suddenly his eyes flashed, and he smiled. Under 
the eaves was a huge gray mass like a crumpled 
ball of gray wrapping-paper, a great hornet-nest. 
He seized a stone and with unerring skill sent it 
into the hive, and, shouting defiance, fled with a 
hundred winged and wrathful warriors after him. 
They went by, missing him, with a ping, ping, like 
bullets. Then he cried, “ Oh !” as a happier shot 
struck fair in the back of his neck, and he hesitated 
whether or not to drop safely in a bed of ferns, but 
his habitual inborn hatred of defeat came upper- 
most, and, seizing a dogwood bough, he broke it, 
and, turning, faced the foe as he struck to right 
and left. Half a minute ended it, and- he sat by a 
little puddle on a stump and counted-up his wounds. 
There was one on the lip that hurt and promised to 
swell nobly, one on the cheek, and a very unpleas- 
ant one somewhere inside his trousers from a too en- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


61 


terprising hornet. He applied a little mud to each 
wound, and at last extracted the dead hornet which 
had caused him a moment of anguished dance such 
as a dervish might have envied. He had not quite 
run away, and, pleased with himself, he made note 
of an intention to come back and have it out with the 
enemy, which had now returned to its stronghold. 
A half-hour more brought him to a slope, on which, 
as usual amid mouldered stumps and backed by 
waving corn-pennons, was the cabin of Philetus 
Richmond. 

Some fifteen years before, Philetus, a man of 
fifty, well preserved and not yet blind, was for a 
few days in a small inn at Harrisburg. Thither 
they brought from a travelling dramatic company 
an actress not over twenty years of age and sud- 
denly taken ill with a fever, and here they left her. 
Very soon her money was exhausted. Philetus 
had seen her play when for the first and last time 
he had been present in a theatre. The story of her 
misery moved his heart. The possible fall from 
the magnificent being he had beheld in her glory 
as Ophelia to a probable death in the poor-house 
troubled him. He helped her quietly out of his 
small savings, and at last, when she was still feeble 
and had before her the sad prospect of a long and 
tedious convalescence, he further aided her to find 
a temporary home. She was but a third-rate actress 
in a strolling company, and with no near relations 
who cared to help her. When Philetus had 
seen her act Ophelia, she had merely taken the 
place of another and better performer for a time. 


62 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Her usual roles were unimportant, and her wages 
small. When the sturdy woodman at last found 
courage to ask her to marry him, her overestimate 
of her own chances on the stage was the chief op- 
ponent influence. Gratitude, isolation, poverty, 
may all have affected her final decision, but the 
physical stateliness of this ample-shouldered giant, 
still strong and vigorous, had also a share. Cer- 
tainly she loved him at last, despite the disparity in 
years. She had little education except such as a 
common actress might get from her stage training 
and experience, and, being intensely feminine, 
slight and pretty, was, like such women, allured 
by a profoundly masculine temperament. Ac- 
customed to manual work in her youth, she took 
kindly to the conditions of her forest life, and if at 
times she had moments of regret and longing for 
the foot-lights, she usually concealed or set them 
aside, and perhaps remembered too well her former 
trials and uncertainties. The life was less lonely 
when some years later a little girl was born. Soon 
after Philetus became hopelessly blind, and then 
all that was best in his wife was gradually called 
out in varied shapes of helpfulness. The little 
money he had spent to help her years before was a 
good investment, and there was enough of mutual 
admiration to flavor the love which the child served 
to knit anew with ties which grew increasingly 
stronger year by year. Like many men who marry 
much younger women, he was more or less jealous, 
a peculiarity intensified by the suspiciousness from 
which the blind rarely escape altogether. Except 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


G3 


for its occasional hardships, her married life brought 
her but one grave trouble. Very early she learned 
to her cost that her sturdy mate was incapable of 
taking a single glass of liquor without being morally 
poisoned. He knew and hated this single weak- 
ness, but could at times be led into self-indulgence. 
Since Mrs. Preston’s arrival, Philetus’s wife had, 
however, a potent ally, and the two women, con- 
scious of their respective burdens, had for each 
other a friendly regard quite curious in two per- 
sons so far apart in many ways. 

As the hoy came near the cabin, he heard at a 
distance Mrs. Richmond’s voice in tones of angry 
remonstrance. He paused. A lumberman in rough 
linsey-woolsey and high hoots was standing just 
within the door-way, a broad, squarely-built man, 
slightly bow-legged, as Paul saw him from behind. 
Again Miriam Richmond’s voice, high-pitched in 
wrath, was heard by Paul : 

“Ho, he’s not at home, Ance Vickers; and if he 
was, he shouldn’t go to work at Smith’s with you, 
I tell you that.” 

The lad paused, a little surprised, somewhat in- 
terested. Moreover, the burly woodman’s figure 
blocked the door- way, and Paul hesitated to go by. 

“You alius keep a-thinkin’ I want to git your 
man into trouble.” 

“Yes, you give him whiskey, that’s what you do.” 

“But ef you’d jus’ listen, Myry ” 

“And I won’t listen. You go away, that’s all. I 
command you to depart,” said the ex-actress, who 
was apt when roused to recall the foot-lights. 


64 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ An’ what ef I ain’t minded to go ? Ther’ 
ain’t no one I likes well’s you. Ther’ ain’t no 
woman I likes as much. You ’ain’t no call to talk 
fierce to me.” 

“ I don’t want to he liked by any one hut my 
husband. Now get out of this at once. You are 
the only man can make Phil drink. One way and 
another, you’re driving me hard, Ance Vickers. Do 
you hear? Out of that door with you ! Lord, if I 
was a man, I’d kill you, you drunken sot.” 

“ How, for the nicest woman on the Alleghany 
to he a-talkin’ that ’ere way! Let’s make up, 
Myry.” And, so saying, he moved into the room, 
a look of maudlin affection in his face. 

u Don’t you dare to come near me !” said Miriam. 
Close after him followed Paul. 

“ Ah !” she added, much relieved. “ That’s you, 
Paul Preston. Come in.” Her rage was still high, 
and she foolishly said, “ If you were a man I’d just 
ask you to kick that drunken cur out of my cabin.” 

“ What’s the row ?” said the boy, surveying the 
shock of red beard, the close-cropped stubble of the 
head, ruddy as autumn buckwheat, and the liquor- 
reddened eyes. 

“ Ther’ ain’t no row.” 

“ Would be if Philetus was here,” said Miriam. 

“ You’re pretty drunk, Ance,” said the hoy, with 
all the courage of his opinions. 

“ That’s so,” added Miriam. 

“ You crow pretty loud for a small bantam. For 
mighty little, I’d shingle you well.” 

The boy flushed. “ You couldn’t catch me in a 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


65 


week.” And he glanced about, ready for a prudent 
retreat. 

“ You’ll keep,” returned Ance ; “ and mind you 
git a civil tongue in your head, ef you don’t want a 
lickin’. That’s all.” 

“ If I tell Phil you’ve been abusing Myry, some- 
body else will get a licking,” cried the lad, feeling 
all the insult of Ance’s threat. 

“ Try it ef you jus’ dare,” said Ance, looking 
furious, and not quite liking the threat. 

“ Oh, he ain’t been abusing me,” added Miriam, 
quickly. “ You mind your own business, Paul. I 
can talk to Phil when it’s wanted.” At which 
Paul, rather puzzled and a little hurt, was suddenly 
silenced. 

“ I didn’t go to hurt you, Myry,” said Ance. 
“ I’m your friend, I am.” And he smiled in the 
silly confidential way of the man a trifle overloaded 
with whiskey. “ Good-by, and jus’ you think it 
over about Smith’s. Good-by, Myry.” And, so 
saying, he found his way out and slowly meandered 
among the stumps and down the slope. The boy 
glanced after him and then turned. “ Don’t cry,” 
he said. “ He’s no good.” 

“ He has been here twice to-day. If I was to tell 

Phil Come here. You’re a brave boy. You 

weren’t afraid of him, were you ?” 

“ I guess not.” 

Miriam kissed him, — a thing he loathed. She 
was rather fond of this mode of expressing her re- 
gard for the boy, and now he skilfully got the table 
between them to avoid repetition of the dose. 


66 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


44 I wish he had tried it on,” he said, laughing. 
“ You’d have seen some fun. He’s not half as bad 
as hornets.” 

44 So I see. I’ve got some eggs for your mother. 
They’re in the basket. Now, don’t you go after hor- 
nets any, or you’ll break them ; and don’t you tell 
Phil Ance Vickers was here.” 

44 All right; but I don’t see why. I’d lick him 
well if I was Phil. Good-by.” As he set foot on 
the fence, he heard her call, “ Paul Preston !” 

“ Halloo !” She came slowly over the field, 
buxom, rosy, and very straight; at times a re- 
membrance of the stage in her movements. The 
boy settled himself upon his perch on the fence-top, 
watching her with a certain sense of satisfaction at 
her full rounded form, liking it as he liked the sun 
of a cold day. 

“ You did not well to make me tramp hither, 
Paul. Why did not you come to meet me when I 
summoned you ?” 

Paul had ceased to be surprised at her lapses into 
a style of speech above the familiar occasion. With 
due respect for the eggs, he got to the ground, a 
queer, amused glimmer of fun on his face. 44 The fact 
is, Mrs. Richmond, I forgot. I — I was thinking.” 

44 And pray, sir, of what?” 

He had a little doubt as to the propriety of the 
statement her question should have called forth. 

44 Well?” she exclaimed. 

44 Oh, I was thinking you looked ” 

There was still much of the child in the woman. 
She urged , 44 What ? how do I look ?” and advanced 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


67 


so that Paul, in dread of another kiss, found him- 
self cornered in the fence-angle with an awkward 
explanation in* front, a more awkward basket of 
eggs as impedimenta, and no chance of a dignified 
and safe retreat. 

“ Well, I was thinking of you.” 

“ Ah !” she cried, cunningly expectant. “ And 
what did you think ?” 

“ Oh, I just thought you were awful handsome. 
There’s stuff like your hair grows down by Bond’s 
brook.” And he flushed like a girl. 

“ Oh, is that all ?” said Miriam. “ I ain’t what I 
was.” She would have liked to make clear to him 
how pleased she really was, not lacking pride in 
her appearance and in the rather tumbled gold of 
her hair, but no phrase came to lip which seemed 
to her fitting, and by this time, taking base advan- 
tage of her doubt, he had wriggled through the fence. 
There he enjoyed her embarrassed look in security. 

“ I ain’t what I was,” she repeated, half sadly. 

“ Mother says when you’re with Phely, you just 
get beautiful.” 

“ Oh, Paul !” 

“ She did. She said so. Where is Phely ?” 

“Asleep, I guess. She’s been huckleberryin’, 
and got tired. Come over and play with her soon, 
and tell mother I’ll be along Sunday for sure. And, 
oh, here’s what I wanted. Mind you don’t tell 
Philetus about that Anson Vickers. Promise me.” 

The kiss was not yet fully avenged, and he felt 
disposed to tease her. “I don’t know. He might 
ask me.” 


5 * 


68 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Oh, he won’t, Paul. Look here, you mustn’t. 
There’d be trouble. Now promise me.” 

“All right,” he said, quickly, glancing somewhat 
puzzled at her anxious face. “ I won’t.” 

“ Thank you. I’ll have dumplings for you when 
you come over.” 

“I don’t care for dumplings,” he said. The 
statement was hardly correct, but he felt the notion 
of the bribe to be incompatible with his dignity. 
“ I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t. Good-by.” 

He went down the slope to the little brook below, 
paused to turn over a stone or two in search of 
crayfish, and passed into the wood. On the whole, 
he felt cheerfully contented with himself, and went 
along whistling until he came into the deserted 
clearing. There he paused abruptly. “ Oh !” he 
exclaimed, a sudden gleam of mischief in his face. 
“ He’ll spank me, will he ?” Sound asleep in the 
shadow of the hut lay his enemy, Alice Vickers, 
very red, very hot, and unconscious of the mos- 
quitoes, who were engaged in a reckless debauch 
on the dilution of corn whiskey in his heated veins. 
“ Great Scott, won’t he scratch to-morrow ?” said 
the boy to himself. The situation was too tempting 
for the human nature of any reasonably constituted 
lad. He went quietly into the woods, deposited the 
basket in a thicket, cut a long stick, and watchfully 
returned to the cabin. There he paused in antici- 
pate delight. His strong foe, whom the Delilah 
whiskey had given over into the hands of the young 
Philistine, lay, face upward, unconscious in the yet 
vigorous sun of a failing day of July. Above him, 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


69 


but a few feet away, the gray hornet-citadel seemed 
tranquil enough, and but a little the worse for re- 
cent war. Around it a half-dozen watchful senti- 
nels crawled or flew. Surveying the situation, Paul 
reflected. He would stand at the corner of the 
cabin, stir up the gray fortress, and, having thus 
brought about a personal difficulty between Ance 
and the hornets, leave the man and the winged 
lancers to settle it, whilst he, in noiseless mocca- 
sins, sped away from danger. It was well planned, 
and, after boy-law, a righteous retribution, — skill 
and opportunity against insult and brute foi^e. 
His allies, the hornets, were sure to insist, after 
the lynch-law fashion of the woods, on the nearest 
man as the guilty one. But that Ance should suffer 
without knowing who punished him would leave the 
matter rather incomplete, so far as the boy was con- 
cerned. Moreover, he must tell some one, for not 
to share the fun of it with another was a thing not 
to be thought of. It might be Riverius he would 
tell. But to confess to that gentleman how he had 
smitten his foe at second hand and run away was 
not so pleasant to think of as he recalled certain 
looks and words with which the German had re- 
ceived some story of trick or stratagem which set 
the winter camp-fires in a roar of applause. That 
settled it for Paul. The next moment, as he would 
have said, he prodded Ance Vickers sharply with 
the staff 1 he had just cut. The sleeper groaned, 
rolled over, and muttered, “ Myry Richmond, she’s 
the gal.” 

“ George, but that’s fun!’' said Paul to himself. 


70 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Here goes.” At a second rather savage dig in 
the shoulder from the boy behind him, now alert 
and grimly watchful, Ance sat up, rubbing his 
eyes and groping about for his straw hat. “ Oh, 
dern them skeeters !” he said. At this moment 
Paul thrust his stick through the nest, and, crying 
aloud, “ Take a shingle to me now, Ance Vickers,” 
fled around the cabin, and a hundred yards away 
turned to reckon the fruits of his victory. The re- 
sult was all that could be desired. The red shock 
of hair was full of hornets. They were down 
the man’s neck, up his sleeves, in his breeches. 
Every boy has wondered how they get there. For 
a brief moment Ance was in doubt as to both 
cause and consequence, the result somewhat dis- 
turbing his power to attend to its author. It was 
a novel means of sobering a man, but, as usual 
with great inventions, brought the author small 
share of gratitude. Ance leaped to his feet, tore 
at his hair and beard, slapped with frantic gestures 
at mysterious sharp-shooters under his breeches, 
and danced with a wild agility which Paul felt to 
be far beyond his own recent performance. 

“ Take a shingle, Ance,” cried the maker of the 
mischief. 

“ Oh, I’ll be even with you ! Oh !” and he swore 
fiercely. “Jus’ wait !” And with that he started 
at unexpected speed after the boy, who fled reeling 
with laughter and with no intention of abiding the 
onset. 

“ Catch me first!” he cried, and was away down 
the slope as fast as a pair of active legs could take 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


71 


him, the foe in deadly earnest hard after him and 
a furious train of attentive hornets in the rear. 
Now, when a man has in front just cause for venge- 
ful haste and after him equal urgencies in the shape 
of legions of angry hornets, even a little too much 
whiskey may not retard him greatly; and Ance 
had slept off a fair amount of his drunkenness. For 
a while the race was pretty even. The youngster 
doubled and turned, and, coming to an open pine 
grove, ran across it like a deer. Then there was 
undergrowth, and the strong woodman had the 
advantage as the panting boy struggled through it, 
wishing he had taken a longer start of his foe, but 
still impenitent enough. At last, looking hack, he 
saw that furious red face within twenty yards, and 
felt that his own wind was almost gone. Under 
ordinary circumstances he would have stopped and 
faced the enemy, being a gallant little fellow, but 
a second glance at the ferocious visage, now lit up 
with security of vengeance, decided him. He did 
not like the man’s looks. Instantly selecting a 
tree, Paul swarmed up it with his last remnant of 
strength, and was well out of reach before Ance 
stood beneath him. Catching a full breath, Paul 
reached a branch, swung himself up to a second, 
and at last sat secure in the maple leaves twenty 
feet above his pursuer, who stood silent and grim, 
for a moment breathing too hard to speak. Paul 
could see him, but he himself was partly hidden by 
the thick intervening foliage between them. With 
new belief in his security, the boy’s spirits rose, 
and with them his natural sense of fun. 


72 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Pretty comfortable up here, Alice.” 

“ I’ll make you comfortable right soon,” said the 
man. “ Wait till I git a few stones.” 

Paul laughed, but did not altogether like it. 
“ Fire away,” he said, boldly. A small stone went 
by his head, then another, and at last one barked 
his shin. It hurt, but he only said, “ You’re a 
mean cuss, Ance Yickers, to stone a boy. Wait 
till I tell Phil Richmond what I heard you say to 
Myry.” He had no idea of telling, but the situa- 
tion was grave. The next moment he regretted 
the indiscretion. 

“ You won’t never tell on me,” returned Ance. 
“ I’m cornin’ up to finish you. This here joke’s 
lasted jus’ long ’nough. You’d best say your 
prayers.” 

Paul trembled, but climbed higher. 

“It’s no use. I’ll git you.” The angry man 
tore off his coat, pulled off his long boots, and 
began with dreadful ease to climb the tree. 

Paul called a truce. “ If I come down, what 
will you do ?” 

“ Kill you, by !” said the man, brutally. “ I 

won’t have no tales told on me.” 

How far the lumberman was in earnest, and 
how far merely disposed to frighten him, Paul 
could not know. Ance had a bad record as a 
man rather merciless when excited with anger and 
whiskey. J ust now the lad’s threat had alarmed 
and irritated him, and, while Paul may have over- 
estimated Ance’s desire for cruel vengeance, it is 
pretty sure that the man’s sense of accumulated 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


73 


wrong left him little self-control. Terrified, Paul 
climbed higher, and at last crawled out on a large 
limb almost as far as he dared to go. Ance, now 
silent, was within ten feet of him, and began also 
with a good deal of caution to follow the boy, his 
greater height enabling the man to stand on a 
lower branch and thus to distribute his weight as 
he moved, hand beyond hand, towards the boy. 
Meanwhile, Paul was edging along on top of his 
limb, fiercely gripping it with legs and arms. At 
last Ance was too far out to keep safe footing on 
the branch below him. The limb above was crack- 
ing with the double weight. Both were silent, but 
very warily the man inch by inch came nearer. 
“ You’ll kill us both,” said Paul. “ It won’t hold.” 
Ance said nothing. Paul let go with one hand, 
got a penknife out of his pocket, opened it with 
his teeth, and said, “ If you come nearer, I’ll cut 
your hand.” “ Cut away,” cried Ance. The boy 
raised his arm : the red hairy hand was almost 
within touch of him. At this moment a loud 
voice rang out below. 

“ Halloo! what’s all this about? Let that boy 
alone, I say.” Ance looked down. The tall form 
and blond moustache of John Riverius were visible 
through the swaying leafage. 

“ Hot till I ketch him,” cried Ance. “ You ain’t 
the man to stop Ance Vickers.” 

Riverius took in the danger of the situation in a 
moment. 

“Der Teufel!” he cried. The sharp double 
click of the cock was heard distinctly. “ I’ve got 


74 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


you covered,” he cried, as he raised his rifle. “ As 
surely as I live, you are a lost man if you are not 
down out of that tree in a minute.” 

Ance lost no time. There was deadly earnest- 
ness in the voice of Riverius. “ I’ll come,” said 
Ance, ana proceeded to descend, followed by the 
boy, now pale and shaking from the effects of im- 
mense physical exertion and mental strain. Ance 
set his back to the tree and folded his arms as Paul 
swung out on a lower branch and dropped beside 
his protector. 

“ What’s all this about?” said Riverius. 

“ Ask him,” returned Ance, sullenly. “ I won’t 
forget either one of you. You look out. That’s 
all.” 

“ Pshaw !” said Riverius. “ I can take care of 
myself and of him too. Mein Gott, what a beast 
you must be to bully a boy like that!” 

“ Rifles talk big,” said Ance. 

The German turned, set the rifle against a tree 
back of him, half cocking it as he did so, threw 
off his coat quietly, and turned. 

“ Row, my man, the rifle’s done talking. What 
next?” 

“ Oh, don’t !” said Paul. “ He’ll kill you. He’s 
the best wrestler on the river. Oh, please don’t ! 
I’ll let him lick me.” 

“ Stuff!” said Riverius. Then, to the surprise 
of both, Ance replied, “ I ain’t got no quarrel with 
you, Ryverus. You jus’ go your way, an’ I’ll go 
mine.” 

Assuredly the man was not afraid. What Paul 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


75 

had said of his reputation for strength and skill 
was true; but Ance was still conscious of the ener- 
vating influence of liquor, was tired from his run, 
and had in mind also certain prudential consid- 
erations as to how his quasi-friend Philetus would 
like the matter. Moreover, he dully reflected that 
most probably the scared boy would confine him- 
self to the hornet matter, and that on the whole it 
was better to bide his time. He muttered under 
his breath, “ Hurt dogs has got long mem’ries,” 
and walked slowly away. 

“ Come, now, Paul,” said Riverius, picking up 
coat and rifle, “ what new scrape have you been 
in ? This looks a little serious. Let’s have it out.” 

“ Yes, I want to tell ; but wait a little, till I get 
the eggs,” said the boy. “ I am awfully blown.” 

“ I will go with you,” returned his companion. 
The basket was found, and again they turned 
homeward. The elder person had considerately 
waited to give the lad time to recover his equa- 
nimity. How he repeated his query as he sat 
down on a log, while Paul, glad of a rest, threw 
himself on the moss at his feet. 

“ When I got to Myry Richmond’s, there was 
Ance Vickers. Well, he allowed he was going to 
take a shingle to me.” 

“ Oh, but what about ?” 

“ He said I sassed him.” 

“ Were saucy, I suppose you mean.” 

“ Oh, you’re worse than mother, Mr. Riverius. 
Well, maybe I was saucy.” 

“ What about ?” 


76 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


The boy reflected. He was not to tell Philetus, 
but this was different. He paused. 

“ Himmel ! can’t you tell it out like a man V 1 

“ He was impudent to Miriam, and I told him to 
clear out. You know he comes after Phil and gets 
him to drink, and Myry was pretty mad.” 

“ I see.” 

“ I said I wouldn’t tell Philetus ; and you won’t, 
will you ? You see, I said I wouldn’t.” 

“ Who asked you ? — Miriam ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Ach, bad, bad ! What next comes ?” 

Then Paul, a little in doubt, related the hornet 
business. The fun of it was too much for John 
Riverius, and he laughed till he ached. “ And so 
he treed you, did he ? And are you sorry ?” 

Paul glanced up at the shrewd clean-cut face and 
yellow moustache. It was perfectly in control, and 
gave no counsel to the alert young physiognomist. 

“ Sorry? Ho, I’m not. I’m sorry I got you in 
a row with that blackguard. He couldn’t have 
caught me. I would have cut his hand.” 

“ I don’t like knives.” 

“ Ho, sir, I know ; but I couldn’t help it, now, 
could I?” 

“ I suppose not.” And Riverius arose and began 
thoughtfully to walk to and fro. 

“ There will come mischief out of this, Paul, 
and your mother has had more than her share of 
trouble.” Paul was silent. He began to think 
that there might be several sides to this question. 

“ I’ll make it up with Ance,” he said, at last. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 77 

“ No, better to leave it to me, and say nothing 
to your mother.” 

“All right, sir.” It would be set straight if 
John Kiverius took it in hand; and with this con- 
soling reflection Paul put it out of his mind in 
a few days, or recalled it only to remember with 
mirth the hornet dance of bow-legged Ance. 


CHAPTER VI. 


Two or three days passed, during which Riverius 
sought in vain for a chance to talk with Vickers. 
Then he went away down the river to Pittsburg, 
and was gone two weeks. He reappeared at supper 
one evening, and after it went over to his cabin, 
and, coming back, put an envelope on the table. 
“ You will find within the account for my board, 
Mrs. Preston.” 

“ Thank you,” she said. This monthly bit of 
business unaccountably annoyed her. She put the 
envelope in her pocket, adding, “ You are a very 
easy boarder.” 

“ Am I, indeed ? I eat like a cormorant. I come, 
I go. You must be very tired of so erratic a guest, 
and you put my account in your pocket without a 
look at it. It is hardly business-like. These wood- 
men all cheat you about your pines.” Riverius had 
a faint sense of mischievous pleasure in dwelling on 
their mutual commercial relations. 

“ This is not business at all,” Bessy returned, 
quite earnestly. “ You pay me by the month and 
are here one week out of three.” 

“ So much the worse for me. How quiet the 
time is! Will you walk with me a little in the 
woods?” It was the first time he had made any 
such request, but of late he had acquired the habit 
of sitting with her after meals while he smoked, 


FAR IN T 1 IE FOREST. 79 

and now and then he had picked up a book and 
read aloud, — usually after Paul had gone to bed. 

“ I shall be glad to go, if you will not discuss 
money matters. I hate them,” she answered ; and 
they strolled away, leaving Paul deep in a volume 
of travel. They walked on in silence for a while, 
following in the twilight a disused ox-road. 

“ How wordless we are !” he said. 

“Yes. There may be many reasons for that. 
One may have nothing to say.” 

“ Or too much.” As he spoke she glanced at 
him curiously. 

“ That is not my case, at least,” she returned. “ I 
am undergoing mental desiccation.” “ Certainly 
not physical,” thought her companion, pleasantly 
conscious of her look of easy strength and bloom. 
He laughed. “ What amuses you?” she asked. 

“ Oh, little. When one is happy and the world 
goes well, a small thing makes merry. We are at 
the windfall.” As he spoke, they turned aside 
into the dusking forest. 

“ Sit here,” he said. As she sat on the huge 
fallen moss-clad tree, it yielded beneath her weight, 
a rotten shell of mouldered ruin. He caught her 
hand, and, laughing, lifted her quickly as a dusty 
powder of utterly dried-up and decayed wood rose 
in the air. “ This is better,” he said, as they found 
seats on a firmer log. 

“ What a strange ruin, and how grim and 
solemn !” Perhaps a century back some fierce 
cyclone had swept as with a giant scythe through 
a mile of forest and left behind it a lane of tumbled 


80 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


trees, a hundred yards in breadth. On either side 
rose, tall and wholesome, a wall of great pines, em- 
phasizing with their vigorous lines the wreck be- 
tween, where, one on another, lay long and massive 
trunks so clad with moss and beset with ferns as 
to look like monstrous grave-heaps in the fading 
light. 

“ They are but as spectres of things long dead,” 
he said. “ At a touch they fall and are dust. I 
would I could have seen it done. Think what a 
sight it must have been. A battle is a poor human 
trifle to that.” 

“You have seen battles?” 

“Yes; they are small affairs, compared to this 
riot of destruction.” 

“How sad it is! I have been here often, and 
always it seems to me each time more solemn.” 
Then they were still so long that Bessy, of a sudden 
reflecting on the fact, recognized in it the gathering 
nearness of friendly relation which made silence 
possible. At last he said, — 

“ You forbade me to discuss business, but I want 
to tell you that I have been thinking of building a 
mill on your brook, if you will let me have land 
enough.” 

“ Why not? Take all you need.” 

“ That is for you to say. It will be of great use 
to you, to me, and indeed to all about here. I 
think I will ask Philetus and Consider to take 
charge of it. IIow would it do to sound Miriam 
first ? For some reason, the old fellow does not like 
me; and yet I should he glad to help him.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


81 


“You laugh at his talk too much. ,, 

“ But he is so absurd.” 

“ That is true ; yet why should you care ? lie is 
practical enough as to all business matters.” 

“ Then you think well of my scheme ? I will see 
his wife to-morrow.” 

“ Perhaps that might he best,” she said, thought- 
fully. 

“ Why perhaps ?” 

“ I hardly know. I — yes, on the whole, that may 
be the better plan. He is a strange man. At times 
he seems to me quite unreasonable, — really odd, 
you know.” With a woman’s ready intuition, she 
had begun to suspect that Philetus disliked Miriam’s 
frank admiration of the German. 

“ Well, I will see her to-morrow and talk to you 
afterwards. Has Paul told you of his trouble with 
Ance Vickers ?” 

“ Ho. Nothing serious, I trust?” 

“ Oh, not very. How close-mouthed the lad can 
be !” Then he gave her an account of Paul’s mis- 
chief, leaving out as much of Miriam’s share as was 
possible. 

“ I do not like it,” she said. 

“ Ho, nor I ; but boys will be boys, and the mood 
of mischief does not last. I will see Ance and try 
to settle the matter.” 

“ You will be a good friend, as you always are. 
I will leave it to you.” 

“ Thank you.” 

“And now for your reward.” And she laughed 
while he set curious eyes on her face. 


82 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ What is it V * 

“ Guess.” 

“ I cannot, unless it is that you will sit an hour 
longer.” 

“ Oh, no, no,” she said, rising. “ It is time to go 
home.” 

“ But my reward.” 

“ Which hand will you choose ?” she cried, 
smiling and light of heart. 

“ The left, — no, the right.” 

“You are lucky.” And she dropped a large ring 
into his palm. 

“Where found you that? It was my grand- 
father’s. The Elector gave it to his grandfather. 
I lost it in the drifts that night when I pulled off 
my gloves to tie my snow-shoe.” 

“ I found it to-day by the fence.” 

“ Ach ! always it is you who give.” 

“ That is forbidden talk.” 

He slipped the ring on his thumb, after the Ger- 
man fashion. “ Thank you,” he said, and put out 
his hand. She gave him hers. He was minded to 
kiss it, but hesitated, and now the chance was past, 
and they turned and walked homeward, leaving the 
windfall behind them to the gathering shadows. 

The next day Riverius strolled across the woods 
to carry out his plan. How and then he looked 
down at his ring, or, pausing, gathered a flower 
and studied it for a few minutes. Then he began 
to think over what he should say to Miriam. She 
amused him, and he liked her society better than 
that of the men about them. On the way he met 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


83 


Ance Vickers, and quietly stopped to talk to him 
and to ask a question as to the path. The man 
was, as usual, the worse for liquor, — a thing which 
always more or less irritated the German, who, 
looking forth out of the too proudly governed king- 
dom of his own nature, allowed little for the lower 
planes of other men’s lives and despised the mob- 
rule of ungoverned passions. Ance was leaning 
on his axe-blade and looking about him as he sat 
on the slope above the brook. 

“ Good-morning, Ance,” said Riverius, recog- 
nizing his own feeling of annoyance, but desiring 
to control it in Paul’s interests. 

“ Mornin’,” returned Ance, without looking up. 

“ I have been wanting to see you about Mrs. 
Preston’s boy. I don’t think he meant to do more 
than just such mischief as boys will do.” 

“ Well, he done it.” 

“ Yes, of course; but really it is hardly a matter 
for malice. Why should a great fellow like you 
care to keep a lad scared? You punished him 
quite enough.” 

“ So you think and I don’t.” 

“ But there’s his mother.” 

“ Oh, his mother. That’s the trouble, is it ? Let 
her lick him well, and Pll quit thinkin’ about the 
brat.” 

Riverius was now much more than annoyed, but, 
seeing how useless it was to talk to Ance in his 
present condition, made no direct reply, and merely 
asked, “ Which is the nearer way to Richmond’s?” 

“ The trail’s plain enough,” said Ance, roughly. 

6 * 


84 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I asked you a civil question,” returned Rive- 
rius. “ Why can’t you answer civilly ?” 

“ A child might see. You go on straight to the 
brook. Philetus is there, eatin’. Guess he’ll tell 
you.” 

“ I suppose you have both been drinking, or you 
would have more decent manners.” 

“ What’s that your business ?” 

“ Why do you make that poor old fellow take 
liquor?” 

“ What makes you go over to see that ther’ wife 
of his’n ?” 

Riverius laughed, despite his sense of rising 
wrath. “ You’ll get into trouble, my man, if you 
don’t keep a little better guard on your tongue.” 

“ That’s where you’ll git, I guess.” 

“Pshaw!” said Riverius, controlling his anger, 
and walked away biting his long moustache. Pres- 
ently he came upon Philetus, and at once saw that 
he had been sharing the other woodman’s flask. 
Such indulgence at first made him either merry 
or contemplative, but soon or late suspicious and 
cross-grained. He was eating his mid-day meal by 
the brook. His quick ear detected the step. 

“ Good-morning,” said the German. “ I wanted 
to see you.” 

“ Well, Pm here and you’re here.” 

“And I suppose Consider isn’t far away, Phi- 
letus.” 

“Ho, sir; a man’s got to keep his eyes near to 
hand. Hot that I needs ’em much, but I smelt a 
bear pretty nigh this mornin’, and bears wants eyes 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


85 


until you come to close quarters, then they ain’t no 
good.” 

“ I like best to look at them over the sight of a 
rifle.” 

“ ’Tain’t a fair thing, nuther, Mr. Ryverus. I’ve 
often took notice of that sence I went blind. We’re 
awful mean fighters, men air. The devil he’s a lot 
fairer; he jus’ runs in on you, and it’s a squar’ 
rough-and-tumble. I’ve had times with him, — 
times ; ’twasn’t hypocrisy done it. That ain’t my 
failin’. That gits you in the teeth. Manuel Swe- 
denborg says so. Anyways, some devil’s got my 
eyes, cause maybe they wasn’t the Lord’s servers.” 

Riverius listened, and at the close was silent a 
moment. Vagueness was most unpleasant to him. 
He said, abruptly, — 

“ What are you and Vickers doing here ?” 

“ God’s work,” he answered. He was in one of 
the curious moods which a little drink and his own 
nature were apt to create. 

“ Well, just what kind ?” 

“ Seein’ whar Ike Rollins kin put a mill on this 
brook. Perhaps you’re a-guessin’ as that ain’t 
God’s work.” 

“ Why not ? It is all his work.” 

“ There’s ways and ways,” urged Phil, keenly 
disposed for discussion; but the German diverged, 
a little bored, and desirous to be on his way again. 

“ Isn’t this Mrs. Preston’s land ?” 

“ Yes, and a good mill-site, too. Quite a nat’ral 
dam, and handy to the river.” 

“ What will Rollins want to give her ?” 


86 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I don’t know, rightly. He kind of left it to 
me and her.” 

“ Then it’s not settled yet ?” 

“Ho.” 

“ What is the way to your house, Richmond ?” 

“ Goin’ thar, are you ? Well, ye’re a hit off. It’s 
’stonishin’ how you city folks git to lose yourselves 
in a clean wood. Two miles off, you air. F oiler 
the brook a mile, and take a ox-road to left. What’s 
goin’ on now ?” 

“ Nothing of moment. I am going to see your 
wife.” 

“ Well, that’s the way.” He was wondering why 
a man should go to see another man’s wife with no 
object in view which he seemed to care to state. 

“ By the bye, Mrs. Richmond will tell you my 
errand when you see her. You will be pleased, I 
think. Good-by.” 

The woodman rose and heard his retreating 
steps. “ I’d give a lot fur to see that ’ere man’s 
face. Then I’d know. Ther’s things goin’ on, 
goin’ on Oh, Lord, fur to see !” 

As Riverius approached Richmond’s cabin he 
came upon the child. “ Halloo, kitten,” he said, 
mounting the young Ophelia on his broad shoulder, 

here’s a box of sugar-plums from the big town.” 

“ I love you. What makes you cut your hair so 
short ? Phely can’t hold on.” 

“For beauty, kitten. Our affection is mutual. 
Where’s mother?” 

“ Here,” said Miriam’s strong voice. “ Come 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


87 


“Glad to see you,” he said. He was more easily 
familiar with her than with her friend. 

“Did you see my Phil, Mr. Riverius? He wasn’t 
home last night.” She tried to say it steadily, hut 
her voice fell. 

“Yes; I met him at the run. He was with 
Vickers.” 

“Ah, I understand. I thought that man was 
down Olean way. You won’t mind, sir, hut — hut 
— had Phil been drinking ?” 

“ Yes, Mrs. Richmond.” 

“ Couldn’t you speak to him ?” 

“ I will ; but Mrs. Preston has much more power 
to influence him than I.” 

“I know; that’s so; hut she’s tried and I’ve 
tried.” Miriam well knew that Philetus disliked 
Riverius, but scarcely why. 

“ If Phil only just had some steady work, but 
lie’s here and he’s there. You know how it is; 
and the logging-camps are just too awful.” 

“ I came over to ask you about something which 
may help you. I think of buying a hundred acres 
alone: the run and building a saw-mill. That would 
give Mrs. Preston a little money, at say ten dollars 
an acre.” 

“ Oh, it isn’t worth it.” 

“Yes; it’s the only mill-site for five miles 
round.” 

“ Phil won’t like that,” she said, abruptly. 

“ And why not ?” 

“ He’s promised it in a way to Rollins.” 

“Promised it!” said Riverius, haughtily. “It 


88 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


is not his. How could he ? And why won’t he 
like it?” 

She colored slightly. “ "Well, he won’t. He 
won’t like your coming in and bidding over Rollins; 
and Rollins won’t, either, for that matter.” 

“ That matters little to me. What I want is to 
put Phil and his deaf friend in charge to run it. 
I will give good wages and steady employment. 
That will keep him clear of Ance. How suppose 
you were to speak to Phil. If I talk to Mrs. Pres- 
ton at once ” 

“Did Phil speak of it? — about Rollins, I mean?” 
she broke in. 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then he won’t like it. I’ll try ; but he won’t 
like it. He’s a man stands by his word, drunk or 
sober.” She spoke with a certain pride. “ I’ll 
speak to him, anyway. It would keep him a heap 
from home.” 

“ Yes ; that cannot be helped.” 

Meanwhile, the fair Ophelia had been exhaust- 
ing her devices to attract his notice. She tapped 
his knee, looked up at his face, tried the lure of 
peeping round a chair, and at last, in the pause at 
the close of his last words, said, “ I don’t love you.” 

“Daughter of Eve!” he cried, laughing. “I 
must go.” Yet he stayed on, playing like an older 
child with the little maid, showing her his watch, 
which opened when she blew on it, and doing 
simple conjuring tricks to her vast delight. 

“ You ought to have young ones of your own, 
Mr. Riverius,” said the happy, handsome mother. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


89 


i( Ach !” he laughed, “ not till I can get as hand- 
some a mother.” 

“ Looks are not much good up here,” she said, 
“ and with a blind husband, too.” 

“ He’s got ears, though,” said Philetus at the door. 
Whether or not he had heard the German’s frank 
compliment could not he said, but Riverius promptly 
answered, “ You’ve got the handsomest wife on the 
Alleghany, Philetus, and she the best-looking man.” 

“We’re very well,” returned the giant, rather 
shortly. “ Will you bide ?” 

“Ho; Mrs. Richmond knows my errand. She 
will tell you.” 

“ I thought you hadn’t no errand.” 

“ I did not say so.” 

“ I kinder so took it.” 

“You mustn’t mind Phil,” she said, as Riverius 
passed by her at the door-way. He nodded, smiling, 
and heard the small Ophelia’s voice, “ You come 
back soon.” 

A day or two later, Philetus, quite sober, came 
over and sat in Riverius’s cabin. “ I’ve come ’bout 
that ’ere mill. Seem’s you’d fixed it with Madam. 
I’ll come, and Consider will come too. Will you 
take Alice Vickers ?” 

“ Himmel ! not I,” said Riverius. 

“ I knowed you wouldn’t. I ain’t spoke none to 
him about it. But Rollins he’s that mad; says 
you bought in afore him.” 

“ Tell him to go to der Teufel.” 

“ I ain’t clear whar that may be. I’d a bit ruther 
him and his loggin’-gang was in with you.” 


90 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Not if I can help it. They are the worst lot 
from here to Olean.” 

“ He’s pizin mad.” 

“ Stuff! Go on and build the mill ; but no Ance 
Vickers.” 

“ All right : you knows yer business. Hex’ time 
you want to talk, Mr. Ryverus, you talk at me. I 
ain’t deef, and there ain’t no call to be counsellin’ 
with women. You’ll find me at the mill, — alius at 
the mill.” The offer was, in fact, too good to re- 
ject; and Miriam had not been without influence. 
He left the German mildly puzzled, but clear at 
least that his visits to Miriam were not to her hus- 
band’s mind, — why he could not tell. Ance might 
have enlightened him; yet the notion of jealousy 
on the part of the blind man would have merely 
amused him. 

The mill was built, and the summer glided on to 
its close. Late in September the money was to 
he paid to Mrs. Preston. There had been some 
trouble as to that, until she heard how much the 
disappointed Hollins would have been willing to 
give, and then it seemed natural enough. Riverius 
had been over to Olean and returned. 

“In the house; mother’s in the house,” said 
Paul. 

“ I’ve brought you a rifle, Paul. Come over this 
evening and get it. Come late. I have letters to 
write.” Then he went in. 

Mrs. Preston had a bowl in her lap, and was 
peeling potatoes. To his surprise, she wore a pair 
of faded gloves. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


91 


“ Come in,” she said. lie had paused at the 
door, watching her a moment. Whatever she did 
had a dexterous grace which gave pleasure to see. 
“ I wish you would finish those laurels,” she said. 
“ I was half tempted to try myself, only your box 
is in your cabin, and ” 

“ I will leave it here. Can you paint ? You 
never told me.” 

“ Yes, a little, — not very well. I used to once. 
I will try to-morrow.” 

“ Perhaps you may like a lesson. Oh ! and 
here is a bank-book. You see you are credited 
with a thousand dollars in the Olean Bank.” 

She took it, somewhat embarrassed. It was as 
though he was giving her something. “ Thank 
you,” she said. 

“ Ho need to. It is a pure matter of business. I 
am the gainer.” And he smiled. “ I see you have 
done the potatoes. Suppose I bring the paints 
now. The light is good.” 

In a few moments they were standing on two 
chairs by the fireplace, with Paul on one side, hold- 
ing the color-case. “ You paint well,” he said. 
“ What a pity we had not the laurels ! How glorious 
they are ! Can you reach the upper spray ? A little 
more purple. That’s it. Take care !” As she 
reached up, the chair tilted, and but for his quick 
stay of her waist she would have fallen. 

“ Thank you,” she said, flushing. “ I think that 
will do for to-day.” And at once she descended. 
The touch troubled her. “ Why did you let go the 
chair, Paul ?” she exclaimed, irritably. 


92 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Riverius looked puzzled. “We will finish to- 
morrow, ’’ he said, but they did not. Mrs. Preston 
said it was perhaps better for him to go on with the 
roses. They were still in bloom here and there. 
When the laurels came back they could do them, 
if Mr. Riverius chanced to be on the Alleghany, 
next spring. 

The day after he spent the morning over the 
birch-bark panels, working with swiftness and evi- 
dent pleasure, while without Mrs. Preston sat be- 
low the eaves, where the narrowing shadow now 
and then caused her to rise and set her chair farther 
back. Paul was cleaning the new rifle, certainly 
for the second time that day. His mother looked 
up from her sewing and back athwart the clearing 
to the sparks of silver which shot through the 
leafage from the shining river. The stumps in the 
foreground were blackened by fire, or mouldering, 
moss-clad and lichen-tinted. She reflected that they) 
were like material memories of things once beauti- 
ful. Why should they be ugly and unpleasant? 
By and by these mouldering memories would die. 
Around them the violets had been in June, and 
then the daisies, and now asters. The train of re- 
flection had the sweet vagueness of the half-linked 
thoughts and fancies which should be, nay, are, 
the gentle privilege of the woman who sits nigh 
the sunshine within scent of pine and spruce, the 
fingers busy, the mind taking holiday from moment 
to moment. She was happy and knew it. Why 
was she yielding to half-morbid fancies? All 
memories must fade. Life itself is one long mem- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


93 


ory. That, too, will fade. Yet there was some 
luxury in the melancholy fancies. She saw faintly 
that once she had been so sad that she had not 
dared to drift in thought. Stern repression had 
been the needful rule of her life, for she had had a 
deadly fear of morbid yieldings and instinctively 
cherished what hope or zest was left in life. But 
now, yes, she was happy, and had no need to coerce 
her wayward, dreamy moods. She could afford the 
luxury of melancholy. Almost she could afford to 
go backward and calmly consider the joy, and the 
fading of it, and even Paul the father. No, not yet. 
There would come a time, when she could do this 
thing and must. She fairly well understood Bessy 
Preston, and was quite honest in her self-dealings. 
Some memorial debts gather awful usury ; others 
are mysteriously settled by time. 

“ Paul, you treat that gun like a baby,” she cried. 

He looked up, well pleased. “ Oh, he’s the nicest 
man I just ever ” 

She shook her head, put a finger on her lips, and 
then pointed to the cabin, whence came suddenly 
the words, — 

“Ach, das ist schon. I have finished the laurels. 
Will not you enter and observe ?” 

She gathered up her work, and, smiling, went in. 
“ Thank you. How exquisite ! You have re- 
touched my work. IIow much better it looks !” 

“ No, I let it alone. I am quite honest to say 
it is good. Where does mine end, and where is 
yours ?” 

“ There, — just there.” 


94 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“No.” And he laughed merrily. “ No, we do 
never know where one’s work begins and where one 
other’s joins it. That is so of life. Ach, I get 
mystic, as is our friend Philetus ; and that puts in 
my mind to say that I would like to take Paul up 
the river. They are going to try to break the great 
jam which is now from last April.” He always 
asked leave in his proud, courteous way when he 
desired to have Paul with him, — which was often. 
At times she said no. The boy’s hours of lessons, at 
which she worked harder than Paul himself, were 
resolutely to be adhered to, and she was as firm in 
regard to what Riverius asked as she would have 
been with any less friendly person. He never 
urged or repeated a request, and took yes or no 
with quiet acceptance. 

“ If he will get double lessons to-morrow, he may 
go. I suppose it will be an interesting thing to see.” 

“ Yes, and there are logs of yours and of mine in 
the jam. Philetus and Kinsman will be there to 
help, and I suppose that fellow Rollins and his 
men. It will be well worthy to see. Wherefore 
will you not also go ?” 

She hesitated, and by this time Paul had joined 
them and given very eagerly the required pledge. 
“ Oh, do go, mother!” he said. “We will take 
you up in the dug-out. You needn’t be the least 
afraid,” he added, seriously. “ Mr. Riverius he can 
pole right well. You never will let me pole you, 
and Phil says I’ll be as good as Ike Rollins before 
long. Do come.” 

She said she would go. Of late her youthful 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


95 


enterprise was returning, and a more wholesome 
curiosity, which for a long while had seemed to be 
utterly dead. 

“ Then we will lunch on the way,” said Paul. 
“ We can’t lose any time. I know the key to that 
jam. I was all over it last week.” Riverius smiled 
at the lad’s little display. The jam was the worst 
known for years, and had defied thus far the skill 
of the oldest lumbermen. Another year would 
make it serious, and the accumulation of spring 
logs would add to the difficulty. “We may have to 
walk back, mother. If it breaks, the river will he 
dangerous.” 

“ I can walk,” she said. “ It is not over five or 
six miles.” 

“ Yes, and mostly ox-roads.” The boy ran about, 
hastened Becky, and was perched on the fence with 
his basket and the rifle before Riverius and Mrs. 
Preston were ready. Then he shouted, “ I’ll bale 
her out,” and was ofif down the slope to the swift 
river. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Presently Riverius and Mrs. Preston joined Paul 
at the river. Twigs, ferns, and dry moss were put 
in the bottom of the long dug-out. Mrs. Preston 
sat down in the middle. They pushed carefully 
out a few yards from shore. It was not her first 
experience of a pirogue or dug-out, but in her days 
of sorrow and anxiety she had often felt on the 
verge of nervousness and hesitated with a timidity 
not natural to her to put herself where her nerves 
might be tried. How she recognized with joy that 
she had recovered her youthful freedom from fear 
and could simply give herself up to the happiness 
of an idle hour. Idle it was and happy. A dug- 
out, or, as it is at times called in Maine, a pirogue, 
is merely a long log hollowed out by the axe and 
sharpened at stem and stern. There is no keel, 
and the inexperienced man who can even stand up 
in it when afloat must be rare, so that a lumber- 
man is apt to say, “ Got to be born in a py-rogue, 
and not squint none, and git your hair parted in 
the middle.” But two skilful polesmen upright 
at bow and stern in this frail vessel is as pretty 
a sight as can be seen. And now the woman 
watched with pleasure the alert lad in the bow, 
heard the quick click of the ash-poles against the 
sides of the boat, and saw the water whirl by as 
with rhythmic precision the gleaming poles struck 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


97 


on the bottom and drove the rocking dug-out up 
the stream. Hand over hand they were brought for- 
ward swiftly amid rapid words from bow to stern. 
“ To left, Paul. Swing her. Round the rock. Quick, 
look out. That’s it. Snub her, snub her, Paul. 
How let her have it.” On either side the hills rose, 
as yet little scathed by the axe, but touched here 
and there with anticipative autumn tints. Pines, 
black and white birches, cherry, poplar, a great 
and glorious show of nature’s varied handiwork, 
fled by as it were in moving, shifting masses. How 
delicious it was, the faint sense of peril, the assur- 
ance of security in the slim well-built figure in the 
bow, sharply conning the river ahead, decisive and 
with a proud look of responsibility in his strong 
young face ! The thought came over her that, 
whatever might be his lot, — and she by no means 
meant these woods to be its limit, — the present 
education in limb and mind was of the best for his 
years. 

Riverius had taken kindly to the river ways, but 
he was as yet far less skilful than the young bow- 
man, although his greater power was felt in the 
energy imparted to each forward dart of the boat 
as the rattling iron-shod poles struck the rocky 
bottom. About two miles up they turned aside to 
avoid a deep current, and passed into comparatively 
shallow water, around an island skirted with willows 
and thickly wooded with hickories and the gum- 
tree, already kindling with prophecy of the glories 
of October. The water was quick and the rapids 
somewhat turbulent. “ How look sharp, mother,” 


98 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


said Paul, “ and sit still. This is the worst.” Of 
a sudden the canoe was checked short midway 
in its powerfully-urged upward course. Biverius 
cried, “Hold her, hard, hard,” and there was a 
splash behind Bessy Preston, scarce heard amidst 
the watery tumult, whilst the dug-out rocked dan- 
gerously. She saw Paul holding the boat with all 
his force, the pole quivering in the fierce rush of 
water. She knew at once, with a little scare, that 
they had narrowly escaped going over. She did 
not stir, having the rare faculty of growing calm 
in danger. “ What is it, Paul ?” she said. He 
did not reply: he was looking anxiously astern. 
“ All right,” said a voice, a little distant. “ Drop 
her carefully.” Paul’s face lit up, and almost foot 
by foot he let the dug-out drop back, saying, as he 
did so, “ He’s all right. Caught his pole.” Then, 
as they floated into quieter water, “ Oh, mother ! 
there isn’t a man on the Alleghany would have 
dared to do that. Glad I was looking back.” 

“ What was he doing, Paul ? Is he safe ?” 

“ Oh, yes, he’s safe. Why, just at the end of 
the push, mother, your pole is apt to catch be- 
tween rocks ; and if you hold on you go over, and 
the boat too. You must let the pole go. You see, 
he isn’t quite up to it ; and so when he held on a 
bit too long, and he knew what was coming, he 
just fell backwards out of the dug-out quietly , 
and, mother, he never looked behind him. If he 
had hit a rock he might have been killed.” 

“ Ah,” she said, “ I see.” 

By this time Biverius was ashore, laughing, and 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


99 


wringing out his moustache, and shaking himself 
like a great Newfoundland. 

“ You have cut your head,” said Mrs. Preston. 

“ Yes ; I could not see back of me. It will stop 
bleeding in a moment. Find me a dry puff-ball, 
Paul.” The boy came back with it and watched 
Riverius crush it and finally bind it on his temple 
with his handkerchief. “ I picked up the pole,” said 
Paul. He said nothing of the little feat, one which 
few boatmen care to practise in a rocky rapid . 1 
lie had learned that personal allusions or expres- 
sions of his boy hero-worship were ungraciously 
received, and Mrs. Preston spoke only a few words 
of question. Wet clothes and a cut head were 
small affairs in the woods, and perhaps also she 
did not quite as fully realize as did Paul either the 
quick unselfish courage or the great risk of the ad- 
venture. They pushed out anew, Riverius saying, 
“ Shall you have any fear ? I was clumsy.” 

“ I ? Certainly not.” 

However, they took another channel, and Rive- 
rius was pretty dry when they came near the jam. 
The boat was pulled far up into the wood and tied 
to a tree. Then they followed a trail along shore, 
climbed up through alder thickets and sturdy laurel- 
bushes, and at last found themselves on a bluff some 
thirty feet above the stream. Here were Philetus, 
Consider Kinsman, and Anson Vickers. Rollins 
and a dozen or two of his wood-gang were busy 
coiling and untangling ropes. Axes and log-hooks 


1 The author has seen it done on just such an occasion. 
7 * 


100 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


lay about, and the men in high hob-nailed hoots 
and the universal red shirt were moving to and 
fro. Then there was a consultation between Phi- 
letus, Consider, Vickers, and a few others. There 
was much talk and some difference of opinion. As 
the new-comers joined the group, Consider turned 
and pulled Philetus’s sleeve. 

“ It’s the Madam, and Ryverus, and Paul. Ryve- 
rus he’s had a wettin’. He couldn’t of fell out of 
the dug-out : he’d of upsot her. Never knowed a 
furriner any good in a canoe.” 

Rollins nodded in a familiar way. 

“ What’s the difficulty?” said the German, mov- 
ing up to the group. 

“ Guess the same there was always,” returned 
Rollins. 

“ It don’t sway none,” said Consider. “ It’s the 
wust jam I ever see.” 

“Has any one been out on it lately?” asked 
Riverius, taking no apparent notice of Rollins’s 
abrupt manner. He knew how these jams change. 

“ Ben on it ?” replied Rollins. “ I’ve lived on 
it, almost. Ain’t I got five thousand logs in it, 
clean marked all, and a heap of ’em water-soaked?” 

“ There’s two keys to that ’ere jam,” said Con- 
sider. 

“ No, there ain’t ; there’s one,” returned Vickers, 
“ and a bad one. Seed it yesterday.” 

“ Where is it?” said Paul, incautiously. 

“ Don’t you go to speak to yer betters,” replied 
Ance, sharply. 

“ My betters ?” 


FAR IN THU E'OREST. 


101 


“ Come here,” called Mrs. Preston. “ Now keep 
quiet. This is not a boy’s business.” 

“ But I know where the key is.” 

“ Keep quiet. Do you hear me ?” 

He was silent. 

Hollins grinned, and the German drew himself 
up. 

“ Well, it’s settled at last,” said Rollins. “ Ance 
will go down on the jam. Some of you will carry 
a rope to him. Here, get the end through the 
pulleys. Now stir around. When Ance sings 
out, ‘ Pull/ let her have it. Here, two of you 
cross, and two stay below by yon pine. Once it 
starts, keep ’em a-goin’, and look smart for broken 
legs.” 

Riverius took out a field-glass and began to sur- 
vey the great jam. For a half-mile above where 
they stood, the narrowed stream was partially 
dammed by an inconceivably confused mass of vast 
brown logs. The force of the wild rush of water, 
now at rather unusual height of flood from recent 
rains, was seen in an occasional heave of some 
great trunk or heard in numberless creaking, 
crunching sounds. Here and there at times a 
spurt of yellow water shot in air. Now and then 
there were, at places chiefly midway in the jam, 
local disturbances, logs rolling over one another, 
and then quiet, as the vast energies at work in 
the pent-up river reached the limit of their power 
to crush or compress the tangle of logs. Lower 
down the shore, great tree-trunks standing at every 
conceivable angle, or piled one on the other, so 


102 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


weighted the accumulated mass as to make in many 
places an almost solid dam, through which the 
prisoned water struggled, or over which it dashed 
high in sheets of amber-yellow foam loaded with 
the ground bark from this huge crush of chafed 
and grinding pines. A good deal of timber had 
by degrees been started from the lower end of the 
blockade, and thousands of logs of black birch, 
pine, cherry, and hickory sent adrift, to be gathered 
at the booms far below. But above the point now 
in question there was a vast, almost motionless, 
tangle of pines. Somewhere in it was the key, as 
the lumbermen call it. There might be but one, 
there might be several ; and the decision as to this 
point is in a measure experimental. As to the 
present case, it was possible that the single key of 
the jam was at the place where Ance had decided 
it to be, some thirty feet above the lower limit of 
the anchored mass. Here an uprooted pine with 
most of its great limbs still whole had become in 
some way arrested, its weighted roots being firmly 
stayed against the underlying rocks and its top 
looking up stream. Against its first strong limb 
a cut pine log of unusual size and length had 
caught, and, forced down by the current and cum- 
bered by gathering logs, had also been weighted 
down to the bottom. Thus the two made an angle, 
and on and about them other logs had caught, and, 
with uprooted saplings and trunks great and small, 
had made a firm barrier. This was continually 
strengthened by arriving masses of timber, which, 
driven down, heaved up, and crossed in wild con- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


103 


fusion, had at last blocked the entire stream. Of 
course there were within the crush of logs a multi- 
tude of lesser keys; hut, the mass once started hy 
rupture of one of its greater stays, it was possible 
that the smaller anchors would he torn loose in 
the violent rush of the unprisoned waters. 

Opinions varied as to whether Ance was correct. 
At all events, the work was to he done from below. 
With this obstacle cleared away, they would know 
if, as Ance contended, it was the main key to the 
jam. He sat down, looked to see if the great 
nails in his boots were sharp, rose up, and, tighten- 
ing his belt, took an axe, felt its edge, and walked 
away on what he well knew to he an errand of 
immense danger. Riverius turned to Paul. 

“ I am going on to the jam above, to see if Con- 
sider is right.” 

“ I wouldn’t, sir,” said Paul. He well knew the 
risk. 

“ Oh, there is time enough. Just fire your rifle 
when they begin. I will not go far.” 

Mrs. Preston was about to speak, hut he was 
now walking away, and she hesitated to call after 
him, — she hardly knew why. 

“Paul’s got to look sharp,” Rollins had said. 
“ There won’t be much time to lose.” Paul 
capped his rifle and stood ready, not liking it, and 
anxiously following with his eyes the retreating 
figure. Meanwhile, Ance alertly leaped from log 
to log, conscious that all eyes were on him. Then, 
looking up, he shouted, “ It’s sprung a bit here 
eence yesterday.” The men following with a rope 


104 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


collected about him. Then one climbed the great 
pine log and as far up as possible knotted it se- 
curely on the end of the rough trunk. “ Ready !” 
cried Ance. Gradually the gang on the bluff a 
little lower down the stream tightened the rope, 
the pulleys creaking, while the men on the jam 
made rapidly for the shore. Ance looked up, and, 
leaning over, struck blow on blow below the water- 
line. At last he cried, “ Now let her have it,” and 
stepped back. The huge trunk, released, sprang 
forward violently, aided by the pull of a score of 
vigorous men on the bluff. “ Quick, Ance !” they 
called. “He’s done it. Quick! Go it, Ance!” 
The woodman leaped from log to log, won the 
safer shore, caught at branch and tree-trunk, and 
swung himself breathless to the bluff top. “ Knowed 
I’d do it,” he said. 

As Ance took his station on the jam, Paul raised 
his rifle, lowered it as the first axe-blow rang on 
the jam below, and cried out, in terror, “ I’ve 
dropped the cap !” 

“Run, run!” said his mother. “Run up the 
bank! run!” Paul shot away at the word, and 
Mrs. Preston turned to Rollins. 

“Mr. Riverius is on the jam above. Call to 
Ance to wait. Please do, and quickly;” for the 
axe-blows fell now to right, now to left. “ Stop 
the men. Don’t let them pull.” 

Rollins said, “ It’s too late. Guess he’ll git off. 
Got as good a show as Ance, anyway,” and then, 
in a lower voice, to the men at the rope, “ Some 
folks is awful valuable.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


105 


Bessy Preston heard, and, hearing, flushed. She 
turned aside a moment to hide her risen color. 
Some flush from the head, some from the heart. 
She did not ask now whence came the red signal, 
but found it impossible to speak again to Rollins. 
The sneer was coarse, and struck like a base bludg- 
eon. She took it proudly, not answering as the 
sallow round-shouldered man would have wished. 
To say a word more was not so much to humble 
herself as to humble Riverius. She had caught 
the faint grin on those stolid faces. It seemed 
hut a jest of peril to them, and how they took 
Rollins’s words was plain. “ He must abide it,” 
she muttered, instinctively realizing the German’s 
pride and his dislike of obligation. The next mo- 
ment, with a prayer of thankfulness, she saw him 
on the bluff a hundred yards beyond, with Paul 
at his side. He had failed to find an easy access 
to the place he desired to reach, and, rightly guess- 
ing that he would be given scant time, and hear- 
ing no shot, had turned back from almost certain 
death. Never more than at that moment had 
Bessy Preston felt glad of the temperament which 
grew calm in peril. Never before had she been 
so tested. For a moment she had had the wild 
impulse to appeal to the men. It would have an- 
swered; she knew her power; but the price, — the 
price ! Now she turned to look, at ease for the 
time. The great pine log bent over, the men 
hauled fiercely, slacked the rope and hauled again, 
aiding it as it sprang towards them. Of a sudden 
the vast stem of pine, feeling the immense pressure, 


106 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


gave way, the pulling gang of men rolled laughing 
on the ground, and instantly the nearer logs broke 
loose. Then there was a pause, a strange stir, far 
and near, sounds of fierce jostle, crush and grind, 
and at last a sudden and violent commotion as the 
whole mass of huge logs broke up and began to 
sweep by with indescribable tumult, now stayed a 
second, now off again. The physical consequences 
of the gigantic forces set free were such as none 
could predict. Amidst roar and crash and crunch 
and strange shrieking grinding notes of the fury 
of intense frictions, a forest of logs fled past. 
Trunks forty feet long shot out here and there, 
straight up in air, and fell shattered on the mass 
below them. White and yellow jets of tortured 
water dashed up to half the height of the bluff 
from a churned mass of foam thick and spumy 
with the shed sap and ground bark. With destruc- 
tive fury the great whirling logs smote the shores 
and swept as with a scythe the trees along the 
banks, and so with the dead and living things of 
the wood fled madly downward, carrying ruin to 
left and right. 

After one wild hurrah, even the loggers rested 
silent on their axe-helves or log-hooks. The terror 
or sublimity of the sight held Elizabeth Preston 
breathless, and for the time did her good service 
by dwarfing or overpowering all other feelings. 
Then she heard Rollins remark, “ There’s a lot of 
them logs busted, and mostly mine’s in the thick 
of it.” Philetus stood intensely realizing through 
his hearing alone the well-known thing he could 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


107 


not see, and by his side Consider Kinsman, bearing 
nothing, was at intervals describing in his habitual 
way the chaotic scene. “ Jerusher, but there’s a 
log went nigh thirty feet out of water. Busted, 
by George ! Never seed nothin’ like it.” And he 
pulled his friend’s ear gently, as a conventional sign 
of desire to know what his own lost sense failed to 
give. Philetus understood, and faced him, speak- 
ing with distinct articulation, “ It’s like the damned 
broke loose, Con. It’s like the devils on a spree. 
Them trees has souls. All things has bodies, but 
there is a spiritual body. Hear ’em yell. Hear 
’em howl.” 

Mrs. Preston turned to listen. He was at his 
strangest. Philetus rarely indulged her so freely 
with his fragmentary phrases of half meanings, and 
was really addressing only his friend. Something 
about her was apt to bring him down to lower 
levels. Now the pair as they gazed or listened 
interested her greatly. “It is terrible,” she said. 

“ And it were all set for to be,” returned Phile- 
tus. “ When them trees was little sprouts it were 
to be, and they growed, and growed, and here they 
be tormented like. An’ men ’ll live in ’em when 
they’re houses and not know.” 

“You should have been a preacher,” said Ri- 
verius at his side. 

Phil was too far on his way to be stopped by the 
laughing tone of the German’s remark. 

“Preacher?” he said. “I ain’t no more a 
preacher than the Lord lets me be. Them logs is 
preachin’ now. You just listen to them.” 


108 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“It’s a good deal like a camp-meeting,” said 
Riverius, — “ about as chaotic, and about as reason- 
able.” 

“ I’m not ag’in’ camp-meetin’s. When you meets 
them thar logs in heaven, vou’ll know better.” 

Riverius smiled. “ Well, it’s not very clear to 
me at present. I can wait. I hope that boom will 
hold. What does Rollins say ?” 

They were now alone on the cliff, the logs float- 
ing tranquilly by them in thousands, now pausing, 
now set in motion by a dozen busy men who leaped 
with agility from one rolling log to another, push- 
ing this and holding that trunk, a manly and ex- 
citing spectacle. 

Presently Consider touched the sleeve of Rive- 
rius. The German, who by this time understood 
the man, followed him apart and waited. The 
deaf woodman hesitated. At last he said, “ Ance 
is come back.” It was useless to speak, and Rive- 
rius merely nodded. “ He don’t like you, sir; and 
Rollins he ain’t forgave you, nuther, about that 
mill.” 

“ Ah !” 

“ Ef I was you, sir, I’d git away from here till 
them fellers simmers down a bit.” 

Riverius shook his head. “I? Hot I.” A look 
of scorn crossed his face; but he took the wood- 
man’s hand, to show that he thanked him, and 
turned away. 

“ Don’t skeer m'ore nor a rattlesnake,” said Con- 
sider. “ Well, I done my dooty. And Phil don’t 
love him, nuth^. Tt’<? o^oor. Guess ef Myry 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


109 


Richmond didn’t think sech a heap of him, Phil 
would ’a’ liked him better. He’s pizen jealous. 
That’s his eyes. Phil ain’t one as likes to be 
looked down on, nuther, and he hadn’t oughter 
be.” 

The danger indicated did not disturb Riverius 
for a moment. He had been among bullets in his 
youth, and the open-air life of the woods has 
always a remarkable power to keep men free from 
nervous sense of risks. Presently he went away 
to walk home with Paul and his mother. The in- 
fluence of an unusual excitement made them silent, 
and they moved thoughtfully through the darken- 
ing wood-spaces, and by dusk reached the cabin. 
She, at least, had more than enough to think over 
to make her grateful for the absence of talk. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


The next day Riverius went again over to Olean, 
across the Hew York line, and was gone a week, 
about some of the machinery for the mill, at which 
Philetus and Consider had been working steadily*. 
It was now ready for the saw and gearing, the 
natural dam above it having been raised and 
strengthened. To leave annoyed Riverius ; it was 
like declining a challenge ; but he was too proud 
to stay merely because of any possible opinion, and 
It was but for a week. 

The day before his return, Paul sat under a tree 
at his lessons, his mother near him, her work in her 
lap. Miriam had come over for a call, and the 
small maid was, as usual, busy teasing, attracting, 
or caressing Paul. How she was pelting him with 
acorns. 

“ Oh, can’t you quit?” he said. “You’re worse 
than vulgar fractions.” 

Hext she was behind him, tickling his neck with 
a straw. 

“ Hang the flies !” said Paul. “ Oh, it’s you. 
How you let me alone, and when I’ve done we’ll 
build a dam.” 

The child preferred more instant attention to 
so remote a prospect. “ I’ll help you,” she said. 
“ Tell Phely ’bout ’rithmetic.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Ill 


“ One and one makes bother, 5 ’ cried Paul. 
“ That’s ’rithmetic,” and, so saying, fled to the 
house, while Miriam laughed. 

“He might just play a little,” she said. “ We 
don’t get over that often.” 

Mrs. Preston, in a brown study, looked up. “ He 
must do his lessons. That is my rule. Ophelia 
can wait.” 

The child’s mother was silent. Then she said, 
“ That’s the way. Boys have the best of it. Girls 
must wait till they want them. It’s the same with 
us women. It’s wait and wait.” 

“ Really,” said Mrs. Preston, “ you are rather 
discontented in your ideas, Miriam. It seems very 
simple to me.” 

“ And where’s Mr. Riverius ?” 

“He has gone to Olean for a week.” 

“ You must miss him. He’s just a lovely man ; 
and his manners — he’s just like a duke.” 

“ I never saw a duke.” 

“ But you miss him. I would. He don’t come 
over none now. It’s funny, Mrs. Preston, but my 
man’s jealous of him.” 

“Oh, not really?” The gossip annoyed her. 
“ You are sure you have not been foolish, Miriam ? 
I, I mean — well, you know, it is quite natural Mr. 
Biverius should think you handsome. The fact is, 
you are. I fancy you know it.” 

“ Yes, I suppose so. But, good gracious ! I like 
Mr. Riverius, — of course I like him, — he’s that 
kind, but he ain’t no more to compare to Philetus 
Richmond than— than— well, I don’t know what. 


112 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


He hasn’t got his wisdom. And for looks, — well ! 
And Phil isn’t drinking now.” 

“ For that you may thank Mr. Riverius.” 

“ And I do. I told Phil so Sunday.” 

“ That was not very wise.” 

“ I don’t see why.” 

“ You cannot know men, my dear, if you cannot 
see that.” 

“ He didn’t like it, that’s a fact.” Then there 
was a pause. 

“ How have your potatoes done ?” 

“ Oh, first-rate. And yours ?” 

“ Pretty well.” 

“Phil says the mill will he running in two 
weeks.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ They’ve got orders already.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ I hear Ance Yickers broke the jam. I wish 
he’d stay away.” 

“ Yes, it is desirable.” 

“ There, I’ve dropped a stitch.” 

“ Mrs. Richmond, Miriam, can I trust you ? I 
want to ask you a question, and I want to feel sure 
that you will never speak of it.” 

“ Madam, I shall he as silent as Laertes.” 

Bessy Preston smiled. “We do not know how 
well he kept his pledge, but that will answer.” 
She paused : speech was hard. 

“ Have you heard any one say- anything unpleas- 
ant about Mr. Riverius and me ?” 

“ Oh, nothing just unpleasant.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST 


113 


“ Well, anything?” 

“ I might have heard something. Folks will 
talk, but ” 

“ You will do me a true kindness by being; 
frank.” 

“ Well, they do say things.” 

“ Such as ” urged Bessy, firmly. 

“ Oh, foolishness. You know, in the camps and 
around, men will talk.” 

“ I must insist that you be more plain.” 

“ Well, if I must. It’s nothing more than just 
the way they always talk.” 

“ Oh, will you go on ?” 

“It’s nothing worse than that maybe you’re a 
little sweet on Mr. Riverius. They do laugh about 
it a bit, Rollins and ” 

“ Hot Philetus, surely ?” 

“ My man’s not much better than the rest. He 
will have his joke. You oughtn’t to mind it any. 
I’ve often heard folks saying such-like things about 
me, — before I took Phil, of course; not now. You 
can be right sure I spoke up and gave them a piece 
of my mind.” 

“ Thank you,” said Bessy. “ Excuse me. I’ll 
be back in a minute.” She went around the 
kitchen, drew up the bucket from the cool well, 
took a long draught, and went back. “We have 
a few egg-plants, Miriam. Will you take some 
home ?” 

“ Thank you. And about that ?” 

“ Oh, we will drop it. I was curious, of course. 
You will kindly remember not to speak of it.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


114 

“ Not while I exist,” said the actress, solemnly. 

“ And if — if it occurs again, be kind enough to 
— well, don’t defend me, that’s all.” 

“ Oh, it isn’t worth while.” 

“ No, it is not. Come in. I must hear Paul’s 
lessons.” 

The day went by, and quite late Miriam had 
gone away with the attractive Phely, who knew 
neither pause nor rest and was as little like the shy 
Ophelia as a babbling brook is like a mountain lake. 
Glad to he alone, Mrs. Preston went through her 
daily tasks next day, silent and absorbed in thought. 
Time had been when she ceased to see or to think 
of Kiverius during his frequent absences. But now 
she was annoyed to find that the face and form of 
her friend haunted her. She began to have those 
uneasy heart-stirs at his coming, and constancy of 
remembrance when he was away, which at least to 
the matured woman are full of meaning. Sud- 
denly she said, aloud, “I cannot stand it. It is 
dreadful. I must end it.” She dropped her work 
and went out. With slow, half-guided steps, she 
went past the well, and, mechanically lifting her 
skirts, passed among the blackened stumps and 
came to the snake fence. Here she saw that she 
had missed the point where four bars, loosely let 
into the posts, answered for a gate-way. She turned 
aside, let down a lower rail, stooped, and, passing 
under, went on into the open grove of pines. 

For a few weeks after her husband’s death, she 
had more than once stood beside his grave. It had 
been hard to do. The thoughts and feelings conven- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


115 


tionally assigned to women in her situation were not 
hers. She had looked at the heap on which the pine 
needles were gathering, and had left it, angry with 
herself, or at least troubled, because the far-away 
remembrance of a golden morning had not power 
to make her forget the clouded sadness of a later 
time. She was capable of desiring to be honest 
with herself about the man she left beneath the 
pines, hut revolted from facing the full truth, and 
soon found for herself the excuse that there was 
no need to balance the account between them. In 
the dreadful revealing light of his later days she 
had been led to see how little he had ever been 
to her at his best, and had made haste to put it all 
aside. But now, now it was otherwise. Myste- 
rious impulses drew or urged her to stand again 
where she had been but seldom since those first 
sad visits, when the strong dutiful effort to forgive 
had brought back to her such a host of miserable 
memories that she had hesitated at last to repeat a 
disastrous effort. Shred by shred he had torn 
from her friends, position, her boy’s means and her 
own, and, worst of all, had as recklessly cast away 
her enormous capacity to love, taking all that with 
boundless generosity she gave, and giving ever less 
and less in return. What another man might have 
made of her proud, passionate, self-contained nature 
she had had no chance to know. She was a woman 
to be won through her exquisite joy in giving, and, 
because he was feeble and needed her, the bond of 
love had held her long. But now ! She was sore 
beset. Two or three weeks had brought her face 
8 * 


116 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


to face with certain facts from which many other 
women would have shyly retreated, putting off the 
unpleasant day of self-reckoning. It was not her 
way. She went always to meet danger, and pro- 
tected herself by courageous settlements of a doubt 
or difficulty. Moreover, she had a certain recti- 
tude even in her sentiments. She looked sadly 
on the grave, covered with pine needles. For 
a half-hour she stood, silent, swayed by many 
thoughts. At last she murmured, “ Never, never ! 
Life is over. Ah, why am I a woman? Good- 
by.” And she turned and went away, conscious 
how terrible it was for her to stand there with the 
full, indisputable knowledge that another love was 
setting her heart in a tumult of shame and self- 
reproach. For as to this, too, she had no margin 
of doubt. Hope she had none. Riverius had been 
always the cool, reserved, definitely friendly man. 
Of his true life, station, and means she knew but 
little. Clever enough to see that he felt that he 
owed her a debt, and that he also liked her, she 
was pleased that he ceased to embarrass her by too 
much talk as to what she had done for him. She 
was at no loss to see that he did not love her. But 
how thoughtful he was ! In a dozen careless ways 
he might have subjected her to the scandalous gos- 
sip which now, with no shadow of reason, had at 
last arisen. A hard task was before her. Would 
Riverius understand her? She had some pleasant 
confidence that he would. But — and she flushed 
scarlet, giddy with the mounting blood — how 
should she find words to speak? And yet she 


FAR IN THE FOREST H7 

mast. It was Paul’s life as well as her own that 
was in question. That at last decided her. 

Riverius came home in high good humor, and 
went away at once to the mill. Thence he sent 
back Paul to bring him a measuring-tape and a 
level. The boy searched in vain. At last he 
crossed the clearing and asked his mother to aid 
his search. “ He is in an awful hurry, mother,” 
he said. 

She came to the fence. “I would rather not 
look among his things, Paul. Tell him you can- 
not find them.” 

“ Oh, but do come !” 

“ Do as I say.” 

“ All right,” he answered, and returned to the 
mill, where he simply related what had passed. 

Riverius reflected. “ Ach, we must wait till to- 
morrow. Come along, Paul.” 

The boy chattered, asking, as usual, numberless 
questions, to which his companion made but brief 
reply. He, too, was beginning to think. He well 
knew that had she done as Paul desired he would 
not have liked it. She had been always a charming 
companion, modest, reticent, reserved, intelligent, 
full of the best tact, a thoroughly well-bred woman, 
yet capable of simple, friendly interest, and now so 
noble to see. The brown drift of hair had made 
her look older when she was pale and worn ; now 
it only served to emphasize the growing bloom of 
cheek, the fuller form, the light easy strength of 
movement, which could hurry without loss of 
stately grace. Hext his mind wandered away to 


118 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


his Saxon home, and he strode along ignoring the 
lad at his side. “ It is well that I should go away,” 
he thought. Some gossip of the camp had reached 
him also. He would think of it alone that night. 
“Der Teufel!” he muttered; “ why did she not 
fall out of that boat? I should have upset it, 

and Well, all debts are disagreeable, and this 

seems hopeless. Would she let me educate the 
hoy? That would be worth doing. What a man 
he will make ! And at home, — well, I suppose he 
would be talked of as my son. Himmel ! This 
world is a difficult place to live in.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


Some days went by, and Mrs. Preston’s inten- 
tions were not carried out. She saw, in fact, little 
of Riverius. lie was here and there, hunting with 
Paul, surveying land, chaffering with woodmen, 
loggers, and raftsmen, — in fact, a restless, ardent 
nature, interested in many things, and capable of 
calm and thorough self-government. 

And now the mill was finished, after much de- 
lay. There were some improvements, — machines 
for hauling logs up to the sharp jams of the saws, 
— and as to these opinions differed in the woods 
and among the loggers. Would Mrs. Preston go 
over to see the mill start ? And perhaps he might 
also ask Miriam and the little Ophelia. When 
Riverius mentioned it to Philetus, he said that 
Mrs. Richmond was busy making apple-butter and 
couldn’t come. Obstacles small or great in a less 
or larger degree excited the German. He said no 
more, but walked over the hills that afternoon and 
promptly disposed of apple-butter and all other dif- 
ficulties. When she so told Philetus, he said, “He 
oughter took my word. I said, says I, ‘Mr. Ryve- 
rus, my wife’s apple-butterin’,’ and that oughter of 
answered for most folks.” 

“But I’m right glad it didn’t, Phil. He was 
that nice about it, and he said I was to persuade 
you, because it was } r ou had fixed it, and no other 


120 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


man on the river could have thought to do it. 
And the new log-drag, — he said you understood 
that just as if you had invented it.” 

“Did he say all that ’ere, Myry ? You’ve got a 
way of standin’ up and actin’ things like I can 
seem to see you.” 

“ Oh, he said it all.” 

“ Then he said a heap too much,” muttered the 
blind man. 

“ What do you mean, Philetus ?” 

“ Oh, I ain’t ear-blind.” 

“Look here, Philetus Richmond, you’ve been 
a-saying things the past few weeks that hurts me 
awful. I never looked at another man to liken 
him to you since we were made one. Mr. Riverius 
is a kind man and a gentleman, and you’re making 
a fool of yourself. The way you let that Rollins 
talk about him and Mrs. Preston is a shame. Oh, 
you needn’t kiss me. I’m angry. That spoils 
kissing. And whiskey kisses are not to my taste, 
sir, — not at all. When you take a little drink you 
get to be a fool. I don’t believe Solomon could have 
stood corn whiskey and just kept up being wise.” 

“ Lord, Myry, what a tongue you’ve got ! I 
ain’t never had sech a goin’-over. As for Ryve- 
rus ” 

“ You just let him alone, Phil. Por a right 
smart man, you can get yourself to believe more 
nonsense than the biggest ass in Rollins’s camp. 
If you think I ’ain’t made a good wife, you’d best 
say so. I’m getting wore out, what with your no- 
tions and your visions.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


121 


The wifely indictment was just, and Philetus 
knew it for the time. Morbidness like his is apt 
enough to fall before the shaft of reason, sped from 
the bow of whole-minded vigor. 

“ I don’t say I ain’t wrong, Myry. I’m kind of 
flurried in the head these last weeks.” 

“It’s whiskey, Phil.” 

“No, it ain’t. A man that’s a thinkin’ man, 
Myry, he gits some foolishness a-simmerin’ in his 
head, and then he jus’ gits het up and sets all his 
reason to bilin’ his folly.” 

“ Well, I wish it would boil over and put out the 
fire and leave me some peace. Half the time of 
late I can’t tell what you mean.” 

The blind man swept a hand across his brow. 
“ What’s the time of day, Myry ?” 

She looked at him somewhat amazed. “ About 
five,” she said. “ The clock isn’t right. It’s ’most 
a half-hour wrong.” 

Of a sudden, “ I thought it was midnight. That’s 
strange. I guess I was dreamin’.” 

“You can’t be just well, Phil. If you would 
only quit liquor and see if it isn’t that.” 

At this moment Ophelia appeared from without. 
“ Give me a ride on your shoulders,” she cried. 
He picked her up, glad of the diversion. 

“ What makes your breath smell so ? Phely 
doesn’t like you when you smell bad.” 

He set her down silently, feeling that his troubles 
were multiplying. “You’re cryin’, Myry,” he said. 

“ She does cry right often,” said Ophelia. “ What 
hurts mother ?” 


122 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I’m a bad man, baby,” groaned the blind 
giant. 

“ Oh, Phil, don’t !” said the wife. “ Don’t, — not 
before the child. I won’t go to the mill.” 

“And I say you must,” said Philetus. “Don’t 
you go to think I care for Ryverus.” 

“ Phely will go,” said the child. 

“ I don’t seem to care about it.” 

“ Well, you’re a-goin’, and I’ve said it.” 

“Very well, I’ll go.” 

On a pleasant day well into September the little 
party left Mrs. Preston’s cabin to see the work- 
ing of the new machinery which had so much 
interested the loggers. Above them the hickories 
yellowed, the gum-tree cast its crimson leaves, the 
maples were red and gold, and the dogwood wore 
its livery of deepening red. Beneath their feet 
the leaves were rustling thick, and the air was 
full of sailing, drifting leaves, a flitting rain of 
varied color’s. Decision had left her calm and less 
unhappy. 

“ How different,” she said, “ our autumns must 
be from those of Europe! Ours are always so 
beautiful that one is bribed to forget the sadness 
of decay and change.” 

“ Certainly our German autumn is more dreary, 
the colors less bright. Look at that scarlet vine 
around the dead pine, and on the rocks too against 
the gray. You should see an autumn in Maine, 
when no leaf has dropped and when a light snow 
has fallen. The leaves set against its whiteness 
are past belief as things of this earth.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


123 


“ Well, to come back to it,” said Mrs. Preston, 
“ I forgot to ask if you got your letters. There 
were several. A man brought them over from 
Olean. Paul left them in your cabin.” 

“ Yes, I got them. They brought me bad news.” 

“ I am very sorry.” 

“ My brother is very ill.” He said no more, — 
nothing of his plans, nor of how the news affected 
him. For a moment both were silent. Then she 
said, firmly, — 

“ Mr. Riverius, you have been a good friend to 
Paul and to me.” 

He looked up surprised. “ I have wished to be.” 

“ Has it ever happened to you to hear any — any 
one talk lightly of me — it is very hard to say — and 
of you?” 

He glanced at her, and looked aside, not seeking 
her flushed face again. “ I respect you too much, 
madam, not to answer honestly. Mrs. Richmond 
did once hint to me ” 

“ That will do. These long tongues are some- 
times useful. I have heard as much, — quite too 
much. I am alone; my boy is all I have. It be- 
comes me to be more than merely prudent. I have 
made up my mind to go away. It is not, it will 
not be, very easy, but I must do it. I shall go to 
New York. I have some talents, as you know, 
and I can get on, and after a while Paul will be 
able to earn something.” 

He raised his hand. 

“ One moment,” she said. “ You are a gentle- 
man. You will, I know, understand me, and — 


124 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


and not try to read between my words when there 
is nothing to read.” 

“ Mrs. Preston ” 

“ Please don’t discuss it. It is very simple.” 

“ I do not mean to discuss it. You are right ; 
but there is an easier way. I have all my life been 
cursed with a certain ridiculous aversion to talk 
over my own affairs. I ” 

“ There is no need to,” she said, proudly. 

“ Oh, but there is. I came here a stranger, and 
you saved my life. I would rather — well, I hardly 
mean what I was about to say, that I would rather 
you had not. But that would be absurd. Life 
is pleasant to me, and more now than ever.” 

She trembled. What did he mean ? 

“ I have learned from you, madam, many lessons. 
You have been a good friend. Of course I under- 
stand you. If I had had more easy willingness 
to talk about myself, I should have saved you an 
unpleasantness. I had meant to go away as soon 
as the mill was done. My news of to-day makes 
most needful that I do go at once.” 

“ It is quite as well,” she answered, — “ quite as 
well. When do you go ?” She was vexed with 
him and with herself. 

“ To-morrow. I shall hope not to be altogether 
forgotten. And you will answer my letters ?” 

“ Perhaps.” 

“ Oh, but you must.” 

“I dare say Paul will write to you.” It was 
getting to be a little too much for her. “ How 
lovely that sumach is! Paul, Paul,” she cried. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


125 


The boy looked back. “ Be careful ; you will upset 
the lunch.” 

Had Riverius been a vainer man, he would have 
had some suspicion of the tumult in her heart. 
Her great self-control aided to deceive him. She 
said, with a pretty shyness which had a certain mys- 
terious grace in a woman of her height and general 
gravity,— . 

“ You will think me a very singular person, Mr. 
Riverius. But you will, I trust, allow something 
for my free wood-life and the need one has here to 
be decisive.” 

“If I say what I think of you, Mrs. Preston, it 
will be that you have some of the best qualities 
that belong to the best men. You will credit me 
with the fact that I never paid you a compliment 
before.” 

Bessy Preston scarcely relished the compliment. 
She laughed. “ Well, that is a good thing for 
Paul. Oh ! I see the mill. How large it is ! Ah, 
my poor pines ! How they will go !” 

“ I did not tell you I had bought Simpson’s tract. 
We need the wood.” 

“ Why, it is thirty thousand acres.” 

“ A little more.” 

“ Oh, is it?” She could not help reflecting that 
he would at some time have to return. “Who 
will look after the mill ?” 

“ I can trust Philetus until I come back. I 
suppose now that you will not have to leave.” 

“ Ho, I shall stay. Frankly, it would have been 
difficult to go.” 


126 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


He did not say when he would return, am both 
had. by this time recovered their full self-ontrol. 
She, at least, was glad to escape so readily rom a 
position of overwhelming embarrassment ; ml as 
for Riverius, he did not fully realize the felings 
which, beginning in simple friendliness of riation 
with an unusual woman, might under others ocial 
circumstances have grown to fruitage whih was 
unsuggested by the merely pleasant floresceuce of 
what seemed to him hardly more than a gateful 
comradeship. Then, also, he was much nured by 
the morning’s news. It was, as he knew, a erious 
factor in his life, and, while it might leav him 
more free in certain ways, was with his pculiar 
ideas and education as likely to render hrn in 
others far less independent Should he tell her? 
And why not? As far as his opportunitie had 
allowed, he had a subtle insight into BessyPres- 
ton’s character. Her proud dignity, her gre£ self- 
respect, had at first surprised and even half anused 
him in a woman poor, friendless, and isolated As 
to her past life and position he guessed somehing, 
but knew little, and in his ignorance of the pecu- 
liarities of American society remained rathe puz- 
zled ; and this, perhaps, added to the interet she 
excited. He had the idea that to tell her allwould 
be in a measure to widen the distance beween 
them; and this he was disinclined to risk As 
he walked on in silence, he grew perplexed over 
what seemed to him so simple a matter. Then 
he tried the useful test of mentally reversing their 
relative conditions, and at once decided, to wait. 


/X3 IT T3E PQSLSST: 


3T 


In fee. there 'was in his mini * 

of 

help te, avi Mk M WKPtm. ^ 5BflK 

fearfad ^ ^ 

He Tent on to speak if Tbslera* T »^ 
the mil. az I ef F mi, z ~zg ^ ^ ^ 7 

how o continue the hoy s mm m 
fit hereof r: ka il. Then -ir sbhl st ^ ' 

up sooe hoiks ana would rf«re JBS- 'atzrm^nnr- 

fully uefnl: md he’ itan urmrawi xTr ewagrr ^ 
at theidea of hew- nnnhL sme ^gana t ;<«*- ?r 
absenc. At>I t<tvt fej ipgirrr-tv Ttr m— . 


She wa 5 

A hif-d:«SL TTt^T. J 


srzzipc ~ere ndc rz r i^ nrrir u.-aiot & t< Hr 
new LictzL^sy. Phil «e ^ywuat, azxmsrc. 
excite, ai>I inzs^sHfL iniL PnheiiR iv ill nt ttir 
and Ocielia md TH^Ttirr. =u»©l m_ "tut ci«eL rail — 
platform Sziie d the mem sml Irui nnugrL one 
anothe; winjim: urn ll Maflrsfc. uhl n Hit Ger- 
man't amcgaBBe. fc. Presim. wit eoidy maii- 
ferenr. »r seeitr: n> it At das: twt great iron 
dntehriooks ^er-r marie is ti a hugt pme Trunk 
which Consider had crarwx it* tut foot of 
incline plane, and, I'idlera* moving a lever, 
great ober water-wheel Turned around and the 
on nxirs passed up the sbot*e and 
the saxt 


paused before 


u y<x” said Hiverius to Miriam, 44 pull tiii6 
lever. He had meant to ask Mrs. Preston, but 
it occured to him that it would be unwise to put 


1 1 1 


128 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


her forward, and he turned abruptly to Mrs. Rich- 
mond. Bessy understood him at once. She was 
proud to feel how well she always comprehended 
him. 

Philetus was curiously excited. “Row let her 
live!” he cried. “Let her work! Let her git a 
soul !” Consider studied his face with admiration. 
Miriam, much pleased, moved the lever, and at 
once the steel began to flash, the teeth bit on the 
log, the resinous saw-dust flew in yellow spouts 
high in air, and the men on the bank hurrahed. 
Only Ance, a little back in the woods, sat still, dis- 
appointed as to his predictions of failure. Paul 
cried out with delight. “ Just hear it, Mr. Ri- 
verius ! The saw says, 4 Go it, go it.’ Guess it 
seems to like it.” 

Philetus laughed. 44 When you git a soul, you’ll 
talk too, Paul. Boys is only a gropin’, like.” 

Then the log retreated, and was set to one side 
a little, and again the saw gnawed at it briskly 
until plank on plank fell from the great tree now 
on its way to men’s uses. 

Presently Riverius saw Ance, and strolled away 
until he came beside him. He felt happy in his 
success, and was inclined to leave one less foe be- 
hind him. Smiling at his own unaggressive and 
kindly mood, which more things than the mill 
might have helped to explain, he touched the 
moody man on the shoulder. 

“ Halloo, Vickers,” he said. 44 1 am going away. 
If you have forgotten our little quarrel and will 
promise me not to drink while I am gone, I would 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


129 


like you to go up to my new tract and boss my 
wood-gang.” It was thirty miles distant, and he 
had the idea that Ance would be kept away for 
some months and that Mrs. Preston’s fears as to 
Ance and Paul would be at an end. 

44 I don’t want none of your work, Mr. Ryverus,” 
said Ance. 

44 The wages will be good if you boss the gang.” 
The offer was tempting. 

44 Darn the wages ! Look here ; you and me 
ain’t even. I ain’t no man to be bought. How, I 
just tell you I ain’t. You had whip-hand of me 
once, and I ’ain’t forgot it.” 

44 But you could not expect me to stand by and 
see you kill that boy. You would both have 
dropped thirty feet the next moment. I can tell 
you, my man, I did you a good service.” Resist- 
ance from his inferiors annoyed him, and he was 
getting vexed. 

44 Then why the thunder didn’t you lick the boy, 
or let me lick him ? I’d have basted him well.” 

44 That was not possible,” said Riverius. 

44 Oh, I reckon not. Little gentlemen can’t be 
licked when they play tricks. Mother wouldn’t 
like it.” 

The German grew pale, and controlled himself 
by an unusual effort. 

44 1 came here to do a kind act. I am not fond 
of quarrels. I see that I might have saved myself 
the trouble.” 

44 That’s so,” said Ance, insolently. 

The German turned and left him. 


130 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ He ain’t afeard,” soliloquized the woodman. 
“ I’d ’a’ done it, and let the thing slide, but lie’s 
that air stuck up, it riles a man. I’d jus’ like to 
throw him once wrastlin’ ; then I’d let the thing 
slide.” And he kept this mood until he was drunk 
again and amused the loggers by threats of what 
he meant to do some day. 


CHAPTER X. 


At break of day Riverius was gone. He had 
settled his affairs and said a quiet good-by the night 
before and left a note asking Mrs. Preston to see 
after his cabin. 

The fall came fast ; the leaves drifted in gold and 
red from the trees, and at last, in October, the first 
snow fell. Paul was growing strong and looked 
well. The German had said some things to him 
when they parted which had made the gay lad more 
serious, and, except as to an occasional struggle 
concerning lessons when the skates Riverius sent 
with the books were available, he gave Bessy little 
cause for trouble. How and then came a letter to 
Philetus, who was too much with Ance for his own 
good. Indeed, Consider being ill for a month, 
Richmond, despite Riverius’s positive orders, gave 
his tempter work at the mill till it ceased to run, 
and then in the wood-gang. Ance had always a 
supply of whiskey. His wages were good, and, 
being unmarried, he had no mouths to feed save 
his own. The bribe was too great for Philetus; 
and, as the man was now constantly at their house, 
poor Miriam was in the utmost trouble. She ap- 
pealed in vain to Philetus, and at last to Mrs. Pres- 
ton, who, however, found that as Philetus drank 
more and more, her words were of little effect. 
When, finally, Mrs. Richmond in despair declared 


132 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


to her husband that Ance had been rude to her, 
and she did not dare to say more, the blind wood- 
man laughed. Ance, bow-legged, ugly Ance, pre- 
sented to him no such possibilities of annoyance as 
did the quiet, handsome German, with his domi- 
nating ways and gentle manners. If she had said 
as much of Riverius, there would have been no 
limits to her husband’s rage ; but Ance, who helped 
him and drank with him, was too near for suspicion. 
He told her roughly that she was a fool, and gave 
Ance to understand that maybe somebody had been 
making mischief. Mrs. Preston once or twice re- 
solved to write to Riverius, as he had given her a 
banker’s address in London ; but she found it hard 
to do, and the more so because he had written to 
Paul but once, and not at all to her. Perhaps, too, 
it would be unwise to interfere. 

At last, when winter was well on them, Paul 
spoke. The boy surprised her at times, as one’s 
children occasionally do, by his sudden attainment 
of thoughtfulness and new capacities to act. 

“ Mother,” he said, “ we haven’t got in wood 
enough, and I went over to the mill, after what you 
said, to get Consider to help me a day or two. 
Well, he was sick; and — do you know? — Ance 
Yickers was helping to get down the saw. I told 
Phil, when I got a chance, Mr. Riverius wouldn’t 
like that, — Ance being there, I mean.” 

“ You were unwise, Paul.” 

“ I told him, anyhow.” 

“ What did he say ?” 

“ Said it wasn’t any of my business.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


133 


“ That was true. Men do not like boys to re- 
prove them.” 

“ But he was smoking, — smoking about a mill ! 
Next thing there will be a fire.” 

She was amused at the lad. 

“You have eased your conscience, Paul. You 
got no one to help about the wood ?” 

“ Yes ; I met Pearson. He says he’ll let us have 
a man.” 

“Very well. Now call Becky.” 

Paul had by no means eased his conscience. He 
was clearly of the opinion that it was not his mother’s 
business to interfere, but he was not at all satisfied 
that, as the friend of Biverius, it was not his own 
duty, and Paul in his small way was beginning to 
feel, under the strong maternal rule, that duties are 
aggressive things and will not let you alone. He 
had also, of course, a lad’s sense of the importance 
of being mixed up with the affairs of men. Aftei 
much boyish reflection, he wrote to Biverius as 
follows : 

“ Hear Sir, — I hope you received my last letter. 
This one is more important. Ance Yickers is at 
work at the mill. I mean, he was at work. And 
he is in your gang, too. It is my opinion the mill 
will get burned down entirely to the ground, be- 
cause Ance was smoking. Of course it is not 
burned yet, and Ance is in the woods ; so perhaps 
it will not burn down, — which would be a great 
misfortune. I thought I would let you know. This 
is not on account of my not liking Ance Yickers. 


134 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Mother is not well. [Here, when Riverius read 
this grave epistle, he made haste to turn the leaf.] 
Jt is only a headache. She often talks about you. 
[If Mrs. Preston could have seen this !] I told her 
last week I did wish you would come back, and 
I asked her if she did not wish so too. But she 
did not say. I guess she does. I got two ground- 
hogs yesterday, and before snow fell I dug out three 
hell-benders. They are in a tub of water; but 
Becky wants it to wash, and I really do not know 
what to do with them. Perhaps you will not think 
this a long letter, but Jo Pearson says he can’t wait ; 
and so 

“ I am your friend, 

“ Paul Preston.” 

“ P.S. — I open this again to tell you I killed four 
rattlesnakes in September. One was four feet long 
and had seven rattles.” 

Paul’s conscience was a little uneasy as to this 
letter, and before long Bessy found out the truth, 
but, to her son’s surprise, she said very little, ex- 
cept to remark that he must be careful not to 
speak of it to Philetus, — a remark which in- 
wardly Paul considered as rather disparaging to 
his wisdom. 

Altogether, Mrs. Preston had a dull winter. The 
snow-blockade began early. Even the rough wood- 
visitors who came to ask rest, warmth, or a meal 
were rare. Miriam was cut off also, and of late, 
indeed, had been but sorry company. Thaws came 
at unusually brief intervals, so that the firm-frozen, 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


135 


easily-traversed snow surfaces were wanting, and 
the drifts were deep and perilous. At times Mrs. 
Preston ventured out on snow-shoes, or, imprisoned 
at home, listened to the frequent complaints of 
Becky, who was always going to leave, and never 
went. There was painting, also, and Paul’s les- 
sons, and too often hours of unexpressed anxiety 
when the boy was away hunting on snow-shoes and 
the night fell without his return. She had tried to 
take a man’s views of his needs and life, and often, 
when in terror at his long absence and the cruel 
storm without, was able to welcome him calmly 
and with deceitful appearance of having been quite 
at her ease. The more she thought of Riverius, 
the more she longed for and yet dreaded his re- 
turn. What would he say ? How would he look ? 
How should she meet him? She would be very 
quiet and cool, but not too cool. That would 
not do. Then she reproached herself with folly 
and rushed fiercely into some manual work. Time 
and loneliness are potent ferments, and both were 
hers. 

About this time Riverius answered Paul. He 
said, however, but little as regarded Ance. In 
March he wrote to Mrs. Preston : 

“My dear Mrs. Preston, — My hope to yet 
soon return to the woods I love well is growing 
less and less. My brother’s illness continues, and 
it does seem probable that I must go with him 
in summer to Switzerland. I tire here of a life 
to which I have grown unaccustomed, and de- 


136 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


sire to be where now most of worldly interests 
lie, and with the duties they bring.” Then he 
went on, in a friendly way, to speak of Paul. To 
this letter she replied in the same tone, saying 
only as to his possible return that he would be 
always welcome. 

The summer came and went, each month filling 
her with discontent before unknown. At times the 
loneliness seemed intolerable ; and when autumn 
passed once more into winter and the evenings 
grew long, she often sat silent over her work, won- 
dering how long she could endure it. At times 
Riverius wrote to Paul, and once again to her a too 
brief note, in which he said little except that he 
hoped soon to see them. It helped her to feel that 
there was even a chance of his return. It was now 
February, some eighteen months since he had left. 
He wrote often to Philetus, but he was so anxious 
about matters nearer home, that Ance had passed 
out of his mind for the time, and the evident mis- 
management of his affairs which he inferred from 
the letters Miriam wrote for Philetus did not so 
annoy him as under other circumstances it might 
have done. 

It was now February. For once the snow was 
frozen hard, after a warm rain, and the trees were 
clad in mail of ice to the tips of every twig. The 
pines and spruces were great white cones of snow 
and ice, and the wind in the woods filled all the 
air with crackle and snap of the shivered ice gar- 
ments on tree and shrub. Looking out, Bessie 
saw coming through the jewelry of frost-work 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 137 

Philetus Richmond, muscular and large in his 
great fur coat and gloves. 

“ There is Philetus, Paul,” she said. “ Put on a 
log or two, and let him in.” 

He did so, and Philetus, in leggings, moccasins, 
and snow-shoes, entered. He had not been drink- 
ing : that was clear. 

“ I am glad to see you,” she said. “ How are 
your wife and Ophelia? We miss them. Why, 
good gracious, isn’t that Ophelia?” A little red 
face, well muffled in furs, peeped over his shoulder. 

“ Phely is come for a visit. Phely’s nose is cold.” 
The child was wrapped in furs and strapped on 
the strong father’s back. He undid the straps, 
unrolled her shawl, and set her down. 

“ Phely like this house,” she remarked, com- 
placently looking about her. “ Who made all the 
flowers ?” 

“ Nothing escapes her,” said Mrs. Preston, 
smiling. 

“ How do you do, Paul ? You want to see me. 
I very nice girl.” 

“ Oh, very,” said Paul. “ Nicest girl I ever saw. 
But your nose is awful red.” 

She marched towards a small glass, climbed on a 
chair, and surveyed herself. 

“ I like my nose red.” Then she got down and 
went on a tour of inspection. 

“Who has made some new flowers? Was it 
you, Paul ?” 

“ No ; mother made them.” 

“ You can’t make flowers ?” 


138 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ No.” 

Meanwhile, Phil took off his snow-shoes and sat 
by the hard-wood fire. 

“ Came over to see how you git on. Myry 
wanted to come ; but I wasn’t that sure of the 
freeze.” 

“ And you carried the baby.” 

“ Phely not a baby. I a girl.” 

“ Oh, she’s no great heft to her.” And he turned 
his blind eyes towards the mite with a look of 
affection. “ I want to make a swop, Madam Pres- 
ton. I want to take Paul for two days. I am 
goin’ over to our camp, — not Rollins’s ; ourn, — and 
we might find a deer handy on the way.” 

“ Oh, mother, I never killed a deer,” said Paul. 

“ Take Ophelia and go into the kitchen, and 
close the door,” said Bessy. 

“ But, mother ” 

“ Do as I tell you.” 

He rose, took Ophelia’s hand, and went out. 

“ Philetus,” she said, “ I am afraid.” 

“ Of what, ma’am ?” 

“ Of you. You drink nowadays. You have 
that man Vickers about your house. I used to be 
able to trust you.” 

“You kin. I ’ain’t drunk none in a week, not 
nigh a’most on to nine days. Myry she’s been 
makin’ a row.” 

“ I should have made a worse one long ago.” 

“ You ain’t that kind, ma’am. Not that Myry 
ain’t right. I admits that.” 

“ Then why do you drink ?” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


139 


“ I git lonesome in the woods, and Consider he’s 
that deef, and Ance ” 

“ Well, that will do. I suppose no man knows 
why he ruins his home and makes his wife hate 
him.” 

“I won’t drink none, I promise, — not a drop. 
Nary a drop. And we won’t stop only fur a night 
in Rollins’s camp. And Ance — I’ve let him go. 
He ain’t worlcin’ for us none now.” 

“ Indeed ?” 

“ Have you heerd from Mr. Ryverus ?” 

“ No.” 

“ I got a letter last week. Bin a heap of time 
cornin’. Barstow fetched it over. Shouldn’t won- 
der ef Ryverus was to turn up here ’fore long. 
The letter didn’t name no time of cornin’.” It 
had caused Philetus to take the prudent step of 
advising his boon companion to find work else- 
where. 

“ Well, Paul may go; and I shall he charmed to 
keep Ophelia. How amusing she is !” 

“Yes; she’s as good as a baby circus. Might I 
call Paul ?” 

“ Certainly.” 

In an hour or two they set off. Phil’s affections 
were curiously strong. As to Ance, his regard 
was due at first to his having saved him during the 
sudden break-up of a jam, years before, and he 
felt it now disloyal to break with him, as in his 
wiser moments he was inclined to do. But for 
Paul he had a distinct admiration, and found in 
him a ready listener, — a thing he liked well and 


140 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


rarely found. They strode along swiftly, with the 
curious swinging, shuffling gait the snow-shoes 
exact, and soon were deep in the woods. 

“ Shall we have to camp at Rollins’s ?” said Paul. 

“ Yes, ef he ’ain’t moved. If he has, we’ll make 
a wickey up and bide out. Rollins he’s had a row 
’bout wages. He’s just as close-fisted as a fern in 
May. Never noticed them May ferns? Then you 
look next spring.” 

“ Isn’t there coal about this country, Phil ?” 

“ Lots ! That’s what fetched us here fust. 
There’s coal on that Pearson tract, and that air 
man Ryverus knowed it. As for me, it won’t do 
no good in this world. And when it comes to 
another I hopes to git where no coal ain’t wanted.” 

“ And you will see in that world,” said Paul, 
gravely. 

“And Consider, he’ll hear. That’ll he cur’us. 
Consider ’ll hear. Talkin’ of seein’, air we in the 
ox-track ? I oughter of fetched Consider.” 

“ Yes. There are the marks of the hubs on the 
bark ; but it’s well snowed up. I’ll tell you if we 
get off it.” 

“ What’s that ?” He paused. 

“ I heard nothing.” 

“ I heerd something. Boys ’ain’t no ears. Look 
about you to left, on the ground.” 

“ By George, it’s a bear ! Here’s the tracks.” 

“Lemme see.” And, lying down, Philetus re- 
moved his mittens and carefully studied the foot- 
marks with his fingers. At last, looking up, he 
said, “ They’re fresh sence the rain. I can smell 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


141 


him. He ain’t far. What’s he doin’ around this 
time of year ? Guess the warm day’s sot his blood 
a-goin’. Let’s foller. Kin you see the trail right 
well ?” 

“Yes.” And they went on. Presently Paul 
stopped. “I see him. He’s behind a rock. I 
can see his ears. We’ve got the wind right.” 

“ Now look here, Paul,” whispered Philetus. 
“ Slip round to right. Git near a tree, mind that, 
— a smallish one. Step aside when you fires, to 
clear the smoke, and load at once. And don’t git 
buck-fever, nuther. It’s business. I’ll wait here.” 

The boy, tremulous with joy, moved cautiously, 
stooped, rested an elbow on one knee, and fired. 
Then he leaped to one side, loaded, and looked. 
He heard a growl, and saw the bear, which was 
hit in the shoulder, advancing only too quickly. 
The guide heard him. “Up a tree!” he cried. 
“Quick! Dern it, you’ve wounded him.” The 
boy was not minded to fly just yet. As the bear 
rose over a log not twelve yards away, Paul fired 
again, and then waited. “He’s dead,” he said, 
and, reloading, went forward with caution. “ All 
right,” he added. “ Clean shot through the mouth.” 

Philetus came up. “ Gosh, but he’s big !” he 
said. “ Here, cut off his tail, or they won’t be- 
lieve down at Rollins’s. Don’t think I’ll go bearin’ 
ag’in with you : you’re too resky. We’ll git his 
back and hide to-morrow. Come along now. It’s 
gittin’ on.” 

With many a lingering look of pride, the young 
hunter moved away, the tail in his belt. 


142 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Now keep a-lookin’ sharp. Think I smell fried 
bacon now ; but it’s a matter of three miles. Eyes 
ain’t no account ag’in’ smell, and smells stick to 
the ground, and that’s why beasts is on all-fours. 
A man’s kind of canted up on his hind legs, built 
for to keep sarchin’ with his eyes. My smeller’s 
a-gittin’ better every year. I kin pretty nigh see 
things with my nose.” 

“I should think, Phil,” said Paul, “you would 
be wanting to go around on all-fours pretty soon.” 

“ And don’t I, when Pm givin’ my smell its 
rights ? Didn’t I git down to smell that bar ? 
Consider ’lows I can’t really smell a bar.” Then 
the old fellow paused, and slowly added, as if to 
himself, but quite aloud, “ ’Tain’t all clear gain. 
Pm gittin’ nigh on to the beasts some ways.” 
The boy looked around at him, hut was tactful 
enough to make no comment. 

“ Oughter be black oaks hereabouts,” he went 
on, touching the trees to left and right, and in- 
stantly naming them as he did so. “ Know ’em by 
their hides, Paul. Some I likes, some I don’t. 
Poplars I hates.” And, dropping now and then 
his odd bits of woodcraft, they sped on over the 
creaking, crackling, ice-clad drifts, until the dusky 
woods grew strange in the moonlight. At last 
they missed the ox-road, and, after careful search 
and some use of Paul’s compass, found it again. 

And now the moon was well up. Vast shadows 
of the pine and spruce lay black on the clean, 
shining snow. A windless night, cold and dry. 
Now and then a sharp clatter of ice falling from a 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


143 


branch was heard, or the sharp crack of a branch 
overweighted and broken. Once or twice a faint 
breeze stirred the stiffened leafage of the ever- 
greens, and then all the still forest awoke with 
innumerable sounds of tinkling and complex noises, 
like the dull roar of surges crushing on a distant 
beach. All the notes so heard had a marvellous 
distinctness in the dry, clear air, where at times 
the noiselessness was absolute. Once they stayed 
to tighten the snow-shoe straps and to clear them 
of twigs, and stood then a moment awed by the 
unearthly silence of the moonlight spaces. Sud- 
denly there were quick crunching sounds to left, 
as the sharp feet of a superb doe broke through the 
surface at each bound. She came from behind a 
mass of rocks, and plunged with labor and wearily 
through the yielding snow-crust,— an easy prey, 
and vast to the eye, in the dimly-lit woods, against 
the white drifts beyond. Paul raised his rifle, — 
when, to his surprise, Philetus said, abruptly, — 

“ Don’t ye do it, Paul. She’s a doe. I don’t 
hear no horns rustle.” 

“ Oh, confound it !” said the boy. “ What a 
shot! What made you stop me? Pve lost her. 
Let’s follow.” 

“ Thought I heerd no horns ag’in’ the branches,” 
returned Philetus. “It air too like killin’ things 
in a church on a Sabbath. Seems most like God’s 
Sabbath in this here wood. Don’t you mind. 
Deers is plenty.” 

“ But I never shot a deer,” cried Paul. 

“ Well, you kind of give me that ’ere doe, Paul. 


144 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


I were a-thinkin’ of Myry jus’ then. Queer, weren’t 
it? I were a-thinkin’ ef ever I come home and 
found Myry gone — or dead, like that ’ere pretty 
doe might ’a’ ben.” 

The excess of sentiment astonished the boy less 
than it would have done in any other of the rough 
men about him. He was accustomed to the sin- 
gular moods of his companion, who at times was 
thought by his comrades to be, as they said, a bit 
strange. 44 You will have to get me another shot, 
Philetus. I can wait.” 

4 4 All right. You’re a boy as kin understand a 
man. You ain’t so sot up as Ryverus. He ’ain’t no 
comprehension of any man’s ways ’cept his own. 
And he don’t talk out, nuther. Seems as ef he was 
alius a-hidin’ things, and, soon’s ever he’s made up 
his mind, speaks out like he was a capting. He’ll 
git in trouble, sure, some day.” 

Philetus had always a certain sense of disturb- 
ance when the handsome and decisive German 
came into his thoughts, and to argue with him on 
this matter was only to make things worse, as 
Paul very clearly knew. 

‘ 4 Well, he’s gone, Phil, and he isn’t very likely 
to come back soon.” 

44 Oh, hut he is.” 

44 What makes you think that, Phil ?” 

44 He’s bin a-writin’ to me.” 

44 Indeed? I wish he would come.” 

“And I don’t. lie ain’t wanted none.” 

Paul thought it singular, and walked on, wonder- 
ing why the German, so pleasant to him, should 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


145 


be so little liked by others ; for Philetus was by 
no means alone in his opinion. But the boy held 
his peace, and Philetus went on : 

“ Don’t you go to tell them men in camp ’bout 
that ’ere doe. It ain’t no man’s business but yourn 
and mine; and you don’t mind a-losin’ it. One 
man he’s got one way of thinkin’, and another he’s 
got another way of thinkin’, and it don’t do no 
good to mix ’em up. As fur boys, they ain’t called 
on to think. Their souls ain’t growed enough. 
Kin you smell that bacon yit ?” 

“ Of course,” said Paul ; “ and very good it 
smells.” 

“ Halloo ! there’s camp, sure ’nough. Don’t you 
go to lettin’ none of them men persuade you to 
take no whiskey. You won’t see me takin’ none.” 

“ I take whiskey !” said Paul. “Kotl.” And 
he laughed as they came up to the huge log house 
full of chinks, through which the red light shot in 
widening: bars out on to the snow and tree-trunks. 


CHAPTER XI. 


They opened the door and entered. In the cen- 
tre a vast wood fire sought exit for so much of its 
smoke as got out at all through an opening in the 
roof overhead. The atmosphere was stifling. On 
rough wooden hunks around the walls a score of 
men lay smoking in lazy attitudes. Around the 
fire half as many more were gathered, lying on the 
ground or seated on rude benches. Rollins was 
there, and Ance Vickers, and many of the worst 
of the men more or less known to Paul. A noisy 
welcome greeted them as they entered and began 
to unlace their moccasins and kick off their snow- 
shoes. 

“ Any news ?” said Rollins. 

“ Hone but Paul’s shot a bear, — a buster, — clean 
through the mouth, and awful nigh, too.” 

“What! that boy ?” said Ance. “ Don’t believe 
it.” 

“ I didn’t steal his tail,” said Paul, displaying the 
trophy. 

“ Confound it if he hasn’t !” said Rollins. Then 
the adventure was discussed, and bear-stories be- 
came for an hour the chief talk, until Rollins rose 
and said, “Time for roostin’,” and one by one. the 
motley crew took to their nests. 

“Let’s get out of this, Phil,” said the lad, with 
disgust. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


147 


“ I’m with you. We’ll camp. Ther’s a lean-to 
just outside.” And in this, with a roaring fire at 
their feet, they found a more cleanly and more 
wholesome lodging, where, rolled in their blankets, 
they slept soundly. 

The late dawn of winter made the camp slow in 
rising, and, moreover, a warm rain falling towards 
morning rendered the drifts treacherous and diffi- 
cult. Hence, as Rollins and the camp-boss gave 
no sign of urgency, every one was late. The 
softening ice-crust and the increasing rain decided 
Philetus not to risk immediate travel. The boy 
spoke at once of the pledge Phil had given Mrs. 
Preston not to remain in Rollins’s camp except for 
one night; hut Philetus either thought or affected 
to think that it was unsafe to travel, and, as Rol- 
lins confirmed his judgment, Paul had nothing bet- 
ter to do than to wait. Once or twice he was 
tempted to return home and so fulfil the pledge by 
which in a way he felt that he also was bound. 
But to desert Philetus, blind, when his friend Con- 
sider was absent, seemed to the boy unfair, since, 
as he knew, the blind man at this season was less 
able to find his way than when the snows were 
gone. Moreover, without Phil’s help that bear- 
skin would be hardly attainable, and the frozen 
carcass would be hard to skin even with the wood- 
man’s aid. Then, too, he was stiff from the walk 
of the day before ; and so, as is usual in human 
affairs, a group of motives influenced his decision. 

A few men were sent out from the camp to such 
work as was near. Oxen were fed, and the bob- 
10* 


148 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


sleds overhauled. Some sharpened axes on the 
grindstone, which one of them turned. A few lit 
fires, and, regardless of the rain, stretched under 
a lean-to or a blanket on sticks, played with dirty 
packs of cards. Paul wandered from group to group 
of laughing and cursing men whose wages were 
accumulating in the hands of the few skilful gam- 
blers always to he met with in every large wood- 
gang. Here and there a man or two slipped into 
the woods to drink unwatched, for liquor was for- 
bidden in the day, and, indeed, as a rule, not too 
much was taken at any time in the better camps. 

The boy found it unpleasant. The coarse tales 
disgusted a nature trained to better things; the 
wild oaths, pausing at no name, however sacred, 
the dirt, the disorder, the bones and scraps of rag 
or paper, the close ill-smelling cabin, all combined to 
make him eager to get away ; and Philetus, whose 
talk he liked, was missing. Towards noon, Paul 
took his rifle and strayed away into the woods, but, 
after a long round which took yesterday’s tire out 
of his legs and to-day’s disgust out of his mind, 
came back at dusk in a better humor, though with- 
out game of any kind. The rain was over, the air 
again cooler, and a vast fire was blazing in the open 
a little way from the cabin. Around it were lying 
on blankets a dozen or so of men, smoking, talking, 
and roughly chaffing one another. It was dark 
beyond the irregular flaring cone of flame which 
lit up with rosy flashes the white snow at a distance, 
and a noble blaze rose high overhead from the great 
trunks lavishly cast upon the fire. To Paul’s sur- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


149 


prise, Phiietus was standing facing him beyond the 
fire, too plainly a little under the influence of whis- 
key. Like most blind men, he usually carried his 
head far back, as if for security, but when he had 
been taking stimulus he lost this attitude and re- 
sumed the ordinary position of those who see. Paul 
had heard Riverius remark the peculiarity. At the 
blind man’s feet lay Ance Vickers. Troubled at 
what he saw, Paul moved unnoticed around the 
outside of the ring, about the fire, catching with 
interest as he went the name of Riverius repeated 
with an unpleasant variety of angry or mocking 
comments. Presently the boy understood that the 
men were teasing Phiietus. 

“ Ther’ ain’t no man kin boss Phiietus Rich- 
mond,” said the blind man. 

“ You’re liquor pert,” said one man. 

“ Jus’ wait till he hears you’ve been a-takin’ on 
Ance Vickers to work at that mill,” said Rollins’s 
foreman, rolling his tobacco in his palms prepara- 
tory to a smoke. “ You wait and see.” 

“ Why, you’re a-talkin’ as if Phil was skeered,” 
said Ance, rising, his red hair and face glaring in 
the firelight. “ Don’t you fellers go to thinkin’ as 
a man that kin handle any one of you is skeered at 
a furriner like him. I bet on Phil.” 

“ Myry Richmond ’ill be glad to see him,” cried 
a coarse young fellow nearer to Paul. 

“ Shut up !” said the blind man, a look of savage 
pain in his rugged face. “Fer derned little, Pd 
pitch you in the fire, Jo Blake.” 

“ Ketch me first,” answered the woodman. 


150 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I kin ketch you, and hold you too,” said Alice. 
“ You ’ain’t no call to talk that ’ere way to a blinded 
man, Jo Blake.” 

“ I didn’t go to say nuthin’. It ain’t no business 
of mine.” 

“ That’s so,” said another. “ Here comes the 
gentleman. Git up and bow, boys.” 

A silence, however, fell on the group as the Ger- 
man advanced from the cabin to the fire. He had 
been forced to take refuge in Hollins’s camp for a 
night much against his will, and for an hour or two 
had been changing his outer dress and foot-gear, 
and now, smiling and comfortable, approached the 
camp-fire. Then, seeing Paul, he made a circuit, 
and, coming to his side, after a hearty greeting, 
drew him away a little from the men. 

“ Oh, I am so glad to see you !” said the boy. 
“ Mother was saying yesterday that you never 
would come till summer. Only yesterday she said 

she missed you so much, and ” Paul suddenly 

had a dim sense such as comes to a well-bred lad 
that the talk had been for himself alone, and so 
paused of a sudden in his revelations. 

“ Any one might be proud to know that a woman 
like your mother thinks kindly of him. You were 
about to say ” 

“ Oh, nothing,” said Paul, as they stepped back 
from the fire. 

“ But it was something,” cried Riverius, laugh- 
ing, and laying a hand on the lad’s shoulder. 

“It wasn’t anything, sir, only I just remembered 
mother doesn’t like me to repeat things she says. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


151 


Really, it wasn’t anything.” And he wondered at 
the German’s unusual curiosity. As to the latter, 
Time, the pleasant artist, had been at his work of 
sketching a hundred charming pictures of Bessy 
Preston. At home, in courts, and while travelling, 
these came and went with backgrounds of the past 
and more delightful backgrounds of a future not 
of the woods. Difficulties which Riverius knew to 
be weak and imaginary, prejudices he only scorned, 
even some words of a younger brother, had been 
in and out of his mind, and left him always a little 
ashamed and more annoyed, but ever with a pre- 
dictive sense that in the end another and nobler 
group of motives would prevail. What the boy 
had not said, his growing eagerness misappre- 
hended. The heart is a deceitful courtier, and 
says only pleasant things to the sovereign brain. 

“ You are quite right, Paul,” he returned, referring 
to the boy’s reticence as to his mother’s words, “ I 
am back for a few days only, but I shall be here more 
or less. I landed last week. The voyage was long 
and stormy. What brought you to this dog-hole ?” 

Paul explained. 

“ I see,” said Riverius, glancing at Philetus. “ I 
overheard enough. What brutes drink can make 
of men !” 

“ When did you get here, sir ?” said Paul. 

“ An hour ago. I did not want to stop, but I 
had to break the journey. I shall be off at day- 
break. I am cold. Let us get a little of our share 
of the fire.” And, so saying, he drew near again to 
the blazing logs. One or two of the men sullenly 


152 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


made place for them, and, casting themselves on 
Paul’s doubled blanket, they chatted quietly in an 
undertone. In a few moments Riverius looked up, 
rose to his feet, and, walking part-way around the 
tire, paused beside Philetus, to whom since Paul’s 
return he had said nothing. At once expectant 
silence fell on the group. 

Riverius touched the blind man on the arm. 
“You were talking about me, Richmond. Of 
course I overheard you.” He felt that it was 
meant he should hear. “ Come into the cabin 
with me a few moments.” 

“Guess we’ll talk right here,” exclaimed Phil, 
doggedly. “ I ’ain’t no reason to hide myself.” 

“I did not ask that. You were speaking of what 
concerns only you and me. Come, Phil.” 

“ Ho, I ain’t a-comin’.” 

“ Family consarns,” said Ance, who also had 
been drinking rather freely. 

Riverius did not so much as turn his head. 
“ Come, Phil,” he repeated, quite gently. 

“ I’ll talk to-morrer,” said Phil. “ Have a drink, 
Ry verus ?” 

The German flushed, and was turning away, 
when Ance Vickers remarked, “ I’ll talk to you, 
ef you want a little conversation. I was a-tellin’ 
Phil you’d fix him for takin’ me on to work. He 
ain’t afeerd to say, and I ain’t, nuther. That’s 
what we was a-sayin’, ef you want to know.” 

“ Is that true ?” asked Riverius, turning to Philetus. 

“ Yes, that’s true. I ain’t the man to shirk. Don’t 
you be a-goin’ to say that.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


153 


u I said no such thing. Come to me to-morrow, 
and we will have a settlement. Of course this 
ends our relation. I would have said it privately, 
but I have been forced to speak.” 

“ All right,” answered Philetus. 

There were loud and forcible expressions of disap- 
probation among the nearer men who heard the talk. 

“ I call it pretty cussed mean,” cried Ance, — 
“ and a blind man, too.” 

“ It is none of your business, my man,” said Ri- 
verius, shortly. 

“ ‘ Your man’ ! I’m my own man. You’d best git 
out of this camp. We don’t want no furriners here.” 

Riverius moved aside, and then, as Ance stepped 
again before him, said, calmly, “ Allow me to pass.” 

“ Well, you kin.” But he did not move. 

“ Then, if you will,” said Riverius, and lightly, 
with seemingly but little effort, struck out from the 
shoulder, and Ance rolled over on the ground. In- 
stantly there was confusion ; but, as Ance rose 
furious and a little dazed, Rollins interposed and 
in a loud voice quieted the gathering group. “ Of 
course this has got to be fought out,” he said ; “ but 
no knives. Mind that. No knives.” 

“ Chut !” said Riverius. “ I never carried a knife 
in my life.” 

“ And I don’t need none for this here matter,” 
cried Ance, savagely. “ You wait a minute.” So 
saying, he walked to the cabin and entered. He 
was enough sobered to know that the man who 
struck such a blow was more formidable than he 
had believed, and now he meant once for all to 


154 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


settle this business. One or two men followed him. 
He asked one to pour a bucket of water over his 
head, then rubbed himself dry, kicked off his hoots, 
tightened his belt, and threw aside his jacket and 
waistcoat. As he turned to go out, Paul was at 
his side, pale and alarmed, but resolute as he faced 
Ance. He well knew the strength and had wit- 
nessed the anger of the man. He was afraid. 

“Well?” said Ance. 

“ You are not going to fight Mr. Riverius ?” said 
the hoy, faintly. 

“ Ain’t I, just ? You wait and see. Don’t you 
bet on him none.” 

“ Ance, Ance Vickers, if you won’t fight him, — 
I — I — you may lick me as hard as ever you like.” 

Ance looked down on the small man with sur- 
prise, and not without the admiration which cour- 
age always excited in his heart. “ You’re a brave 
little cuss. I’ll count you and me’s even when I’m 
done with Ryverus.” 

“But you won’t. Please, Ance. He isn’t as 
strong as you. It’s mean,” he added, seeing the 
relentless face. Ance smiled. 

“ I won’t kill him. Don’t you he afeerd of that. 
He won’t take much hurtin’.” 

Then the boy’s soul rose for his friend at the 
note of scorn in Ance’s voice. “ Kill him !” he 
cried, proudly. “ You haven’t licked him yet.” 

“Derned ef I wouldn’t like to have a young un 
like you,” said Ance, laughing. “ Git out. This 
air men’s work.” And he turned and went out, 
followed by the boy, who, fearful and troubled, but 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


155 


still curious, climbed on to a tall stump and with 
beating heart stood to watch the result. 

The ring opened, and Ance entered. As he came 
forward, Riverius threw off his coat and waistcoat, 
rolled his shirt-sleeves tranquilly up a pair of white, 
well-modelled arms, and, turning, faced his foe. 
There were quick words and phrases all around 
them, and the German knew that he was surrounded 
by enemies. Looking about him, he caught sight 
of Paul’s serious face, and, laughing lightly, kissed 
his hand to the boy, understanding his anxiety. 

“ Back, there !” said Rollins. “ Give them room.” 

“ He’ll guess a bar’s got him,” said one. “ He’ll 
need nussin’,” said another. 

Vickers advanced with care, meaning to make it 
a wrestling-bout. Then he ran in. Riverius caught 
him with left and right, two savage blows. At this 
Ance, surprised and furious, lost his head and made 
a less skilful rush. Riverius leaped aside and struck 
Ance below the ear. Poor Ance went down like a 
bullock in the shambles, and for a moment did not 
rise. Riverius fell back a pace and smiled grimly, 
remembering his days at Eton and their rough 
training. A murmur of amazed exclamations arose 
as Ance got up slowly and passed a hand across his 
face. He was bewildered and giddy, but again 
turned, facing his man. Some one cried out, “ Take 
time, Ance. Give him a drink.” 

“ I am in no hurry,” said Riverius. “ Have you 
had enough ? Come, now,” he added, gravely : “ you 
haven’t got the trick of it. Let’s shake hands.” 

Ance stood still, looking about him at the sur- 


156 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


prise and amusement in the men’s faces. “ Derned 
ef Alice ain’t licked,” said one. “ No, he ain’t,” 
cried another. Suddenly Alice rail forward, 
dropped on his knee, caught the German by the 
legs, and threw him forward. “ It’s Ance’s old 
fall.” “By George!” 

Had Riverius lit on his head, the fight would 
have had a serious ending; but Ance was out of 
condition, and Riverius, falling on his side, was in- 
stantly on his feet with cat-like agility. As Ance 
turned on him again, he struck him furiously, and, 
following hot with wrath, left him no chance to re- 
cover until, with the blood flying from his face, he 
was driven back helpless and dropped beaten among 
his friends. Riverius retreated and waited amidst 
a storm of admiring or derisive cries. Presently 
Ance came forward, blinded and bruised. 

“ Got enough ?” said Riverius, sternly. “ Con- 
found it, I don’t want to kill you. Here; shake 
hands.” 

“ I’ve got enough,” said Alice. “ I’ve got enough 
for this time. And as fur shakin’ hands, ef I’d 
licked you I’d ’a’ shook hands quick enough. I 
’ain’t and I won’t. You’ll keep, I guess.” 

One of the men laughed. Riverius turned. “ It’s 
easy to laugh,” he said. “ If any of you think you 
are better men than Ance Vickers, — well, I’m not 
very tired.” No one answered. Ance, amazed, 
looked up through his swollen eyes. 

“ You’re the best of the lot, Mr. Ryverus. I’d 
like you ef I could. I jus’ can’t.” And he moved 
away through the crowd. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


157 


Riverius turned to Rollins. “I see,” he said, 
“ that I am not over-welcome here, and I assure 
you I did not stop at your camp because I wanted 
to. — Come, Paul, let’s get out of this.” 

Rollins said, “Well, you had fair play. You 
can’t gainsay that.” 

“ Yo ; I am obliged to you. — Come, Paul.” 

As he passed Philetus, the blind man said, “ Mr. 
Ryverus.” 

“Well?” 

“You ain’t done me justice, and you wouldn’t 
stay none to listen.” 

“ And I do not mean to now. You are a lot of 
curs. — Hurry, Paul.” 

An angry murmur arose, but Philetus said no 
word in reply, and soon Riverius and the boy were 
away through the woods. 

After a few moments of silence Paul spoke : “ I 
was afraid for. you, sir, at first.” 

“ Oh, he hadn’t a chance. He is a good bit of a 
man, too. He did that fall well. I had a near thing 
of it. Do not let your mother know of it, and some 
day you must learn to spar.” 

A half-mile from camp the pair stopped, built a 
fire, made a lean-to of bark and blanket, and, with 
their feet to the fire, turned in. At dawn they were 
up and off, and in an hour found the bear, of whose 
defeat the boy had much to say. The carcass was 
still warm within, and, talking as they worked, 
Riverius skilfully skinned it, and then, loaded with 
meat and the fur, they went on again. 


CHAPTER XII. 


When Bessy, coming from the door- way, saw the 
two familiar figures, she stood still to quiet the 
violence of emotion which of a sudden disturbed 
her. Then she went out, meeting her friend with 
both hands as he offered his, and frankly showing 
her pleasure with such tranquillity as she could 
command. They took quick note of each other 
as they stood for a moment, and until she drew 
back he held her fast and looked seriously into the 
eyes which he had not forgotten. She met smiling 
his attentive survey. How handsome and gracious 
she was ! Her size and pride of carriage lent some 
strange emphasis to the half-concealed gladness of 
her simple welcome. 

“ You look tired,” she said. 

“ Yes, I am. Since I left you, I have had sor- 
row and known trouble.” He did not say what. 
“ How well Paul looks ! And he has killed a bear. 
There will be no living with him after that” 

“ Indeed ! So I see. How was it, Paul ?” 

He told his story, while at times she stole looks 
at Riverius. Then the latter explained that he had 
found Philetus drinking and had brought the boy 
away from Rollins’s camp. 

For a few days Riverius was greatly occupied 
in the woods, so that she saw him but little. He 
was away to Olean, or down to Smethport, or in 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


159 


the camp, readjusting his affairs. He himself felt 
that he was restless. She learned by and by, to 
her surprise, that he had a new head to his wood- 
gangs. When at home he was apt to be visited by 
one or another of his men or of those with whom 
he was in some way dealing, and it soon leaked 
out that for the first time Alice had met his match. 
Then she questioned Paul, who w*as now forced to 
speak, and so at last she heard all about Philetus 
and the boy’s account of the famous battle. That 
the German was right and had been just she was 
sure, but she began to feel that the matter had sad 
aspects for Miriam. At length she determined to 
take advantage of a clear, cold day, and, with Paul 
for guide, set off on snow-shoes to visit Mrs. Rich- 
mond. It was a long walk, but she was well trained 
to this mode of progression, and surprised herself 
by her skill. 

The little cabin was hot and close. Miriam, paler 
than common, but still in fair rosiness of over- 
bloom, was charmed to see her. With her quick 
woman eyes Bessy saw at a glance that the custom- 
ary neatness of the home was somewhat wanting. 
“ How are you, Miriam ?” she said. “ And my 
little maid, — how is she? I thought I certainly 
must come over and see you. Where have you 
been ?” Usually Miriam managed to visit her 
from time to time. She made no answer. “ What 
is wrong, my friend ?” said Bessy. “ What is the 
matter ?” 

Poor Miriam burst into tears. ‘‘Everything’s 
wrong, — everything! Philetus is drinking. Mr. 


160 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Riverius has turned him off. The wood-gangs are 
full. Consider he’s abed and can’t go round with 
him; and — and Ance Vickers comes here. He 
comes when Phil’s away. And — oh, that man ! 
If I tell Phil he’d kill him. One day he’d kill 
him, and one day he’d just laugh at me. I wish I 
was dead.” And she hid her face in her hands. 

“ Well, Miriam, here are troubles enough, surely. 
By the way, Paul has a basket of things for you 
and a trifle for the child, — just a pretty frock. I 
made it myself. Come, let us see if it fits. I am 
here for the day. We have time enough.” 

The little lady was pleased with the gown, and 
surveyed herself with delight. Then she went 
away and sat down and smoothed out the skirt 
and showed a feminine joy in the novelty. 

“ How pretty she is !” said Bessy. “ How 
dainty !” 

“ And what will become of her ?” 

“Hush. Come into the kitchen. There, now, 
there is nothing like a good talk. In the first 
place, I want to lend you some money.” 

“ I can’t — I can’t take it.” 

“ Nonsense !” And Bessy stuffed the notes into 
Miriam’s pocket. “ And now about Phil.” 

“ Couldn’t you ask Mr. Riverius to take him on 
again ? He’s that down now, and really sometimes 
he seems so strange it just frightens me. He says 
he sees visions.” 

“ Visions?” 

“Yes; it’s a way he has sometimes; but now — 
oh, I don’t know.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 1(J1 

“ I do not see how I can ask Mr. Riverius to 
take him hack.” 

“ Is he so hard ?” 

“ Ho, he is not, hut he is angry, and reasonably 
so. I will think about it. I hardly see my way.” 

At this moment they heard little Ophelia cry 
out, “ Oh, father, come and see my frock. Come 
and feel it. It’s so pretty. Me just like a lady.” 

“Here is Mrs. Preston, Phil,” said Miriam, as 
he entered the kitchen. 

“ I am glad to see you, Philetus,” said Bessy. 

“ Morning ma’am,” he returned. “ How’s all 
you? How’s Paul? Where’s Mr. Ryverus?” he 
added, suddenly. 

“ He has gone to Smethport for three days. I 
am sorry you and he have fallen out.” 

“Well, I’m not. He’s a hard man. He don’t 
make no ’lowance for folks.” 

“ Do you ?” said Bessy. “ I am afraid not.” 

“ Well, I’m tired a lot. Ho eyes, no work, and 
Consider got the black-leg .” 1 

“ Come over and chop for me. We are running 
short of wood.” 

“ I’ll do it, and thanks. Air Mr. Ryverus a 
friend of yourn, Mrs. Preston ?” He spoke ab- 
ruptly. 

“ Certainly,” she said, in surprise. 

“ Then you tell him to git away from these here 
parts. I don’t mind him much, but there’s some 
as don’t hanker arter him.” 


1 A form of scurvy common among the ill-fed lumbermen. 


162 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ What is it you fear ? I wish you would speak 
frankly.” 

“Well, maybe I dreamed he was in trouble. 
Anyways, he’d best go.” 

“It is hard for me to see why you talk in this 
way, Philetus. It puzzles me. Mr. Riverius has 
been away eighteen months. I know that he has 
dismissed you ; but I know, and you know, that he 
had good cause to be angry.” 

“ It ain’t that. He’s stirred up things sence he 
come back so’s to make a lot of trouble. He gives 
big wages, and that takes the best men out’r other 
gangs. And then it’s jus’ a word and go. Things has 
got to go ’long like men was machines. Him and 
me ain’t friends, — never was, and never will be.” 

“ But you took his wages and did his work.” 

“ Might be so, but I air done the like for the 
devil in my time, — more’s the shame.” 

“ Philetus !” 

“ Anyways, it’s on my mind to tell you right out. 
There’ll be trouble. I wish he’d ’a’ stayed away. 
He ain’t nothin’ to me, and ef he hadn’t bin your 
friend I wouldn’t ’a’ bothered none to speak.” 

“ I will certainly tell him, Philetus ; but he is the 
kind of man who does not give up easily. I incline 
to think that the very way to make him stay as 
long as he can is to tell him that there is risk in 
his staying.” 

“ I kind of wonder what he keeps round here 
for, anyways. I heerd he was meanin’ to put in 
another set of saws at the mill. That’ll be a big 
business.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


163 


44 He spoke of it the other day. I suppose that 
may help to detain him ; but really, Philetus, it is 
hardly my affair, and you have put yourself out of 
it by your own action.” 

44 The man he’s got can’t run it.” 

Bessy smiled. “ You may be sure it will be 
made to run if Mr. Biverius stays a year.” 

44 A year ! a year !” said the blind man. “ Lord ! 
the wickedness kin be hatched in a year !” And 
he went out, Bessy looking after him anxiously. 

Later in the day Miriam said to her, 4 4 1 hope 
you will warn Mr. Biverius. Somehow they are 
all against him ; and you know what these men 
are.” 

44 1 know,” said Bessy, shuddering. 

44 And tell him on no account to come here.” 

44 He is not likely to do so.” 

44 Well, it seemed to me I must tell you. Phil — 
well, guess I won’t say no more : guess I’ve said 
all I ought to.” And she added nothing further. 

Three days later, Biverius came back, and in the 
afternoon sat down to talk to her while Paul was 
away setting traps. 

44 1 really have hardly seen you,” he said. 44 Tell 
me everything.” 

She. laughed a happy laugh, looking up at the 
German across her sewing. 44 You do not mean to 
stay here long ?” It was a hope akin to fear. 

44 Ho,” he said, gravely, 44 1 have not forgotten.” 

44 1 do not mean that. How could you think it ?” 
she returned, coloring. 44 The gangs, for some 
reason, I believe for little, are set against you, and 
n* 


lGi 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


men’s lives are little valued in this wilderness. A 
shot, a blow, — anything is so easy.” 

“ Am I so unpopular? I wonder why.” He felt 
his own difficulty of being on equal terms with the 
wood-people, and, also disliking the results, still 
wondered at the fact. He knew that he tried to be 
pleasant. 

“Let me ask you, is there any real cause?” 

“ Oh, apart from Yickers, who isn’t as bad as he 
looks, and Philetus ” 

“ You are stern at times.” 

“ Do you think so ?” 

“ And they say — well, hard and haughty.” 

“ Ami?” 

“ I think not, except in manner.” 

“ But that is the only way in which haughtiness 
shows. Honestly, I do not mean to be haughty. I 
suppose it is education ; perhaps, too, a matter of 
caste. Why do you live up here?” he added, 
abruptly. “ Why not go away ?” 

“I cannot afford to go,” she said, simply, and 
went on sewing. 

He made no reply, but sat looking over at the 
sweet, proud face and nimble hands. 

“ You are horribly frank,” he said, at last. 

“ Am I ? That is a matter of character, I sup- 
pose, and also, perhaps, of this open out-door life 
away from all social bonds. I often wonder if it 
is good for one. It simplifies life in a way.” 

“ Yes, here it suits, or seems to. If to be uncon- 
ventional always simplifies life, I doubt. But habits 
are strong fetters. I find no effort needed to take 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


165 


up anew even the absurdities of our most conven- 
tional life. As to worse things, it is as hard really to 
barbarize the civilized as to civilize the barbarous.” 

“ Gracious, what a formidable statement !” said 
Bessy. “ You should write books and put in these 
wise things with portraits of the aborigines, Paul 
and myself.” 

“ It is rather late,” he laughed. “ The book is 
written, and you are left out. I wrote a book once, 
but it was only a memorandum of unusually inter- 
esting travel.” 

Men who wrote books were rare in this country 
at that date. 

Mrs. Preston looked up. “ Might I see it ?” 

“ Perhaps, some day. If ” 

“ If I am good, I suppose.” 

“ You are always good. You will be better if I 
may smoke.” He never failed to ask leave in her 
house, or in Miriam’s, which constantly surprised 
the ex-actress, who said to her friend Mrs. Preston 
that he was a man had no power to make himself 
comfortable. She slightly despised the condescen- 
sion of his asking, and felt it to be what she called 
a come-down for a man. To ask leave to smoke 
in that rousrh land was like asking leave to breathe. 

“ Oh, smoke, by all means,” said Bessy. “ I 
might bargain that there should be no pipe until 
we saw your book. Have you no sense of the 
cruelty of overtaxing a woman’s curiosity?” 

He smiled, well pleased, as he packed his meer- 
schaum, then went to the lire and chose a brand 
and blew it bright and lit the pipe, a nice picture 


166 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


with his head up and back, the tawny moustache, 
clear skin, and wavy hair aglow as the ruddy pipe- 
light flashed over them. 

“ The book you shall have. It kept me away to 
finish it. Ach, that and other things. When I 
am gone, a copy will come for you. I thank you 
for my good pipe. It is a benediction.” 

She knew easily what this man wanted and did 
not want. She thought with a fierce pang how 
often Paul, the husband, had puzzled her. He had 
seemed to speak a moral language other than that 
she knew. As for Riverius, she understood almost 
always or happily guessed beyond. In little and 
large things she mysteriously apprehended him. 
How she knew that he did not want to talk of his 
book and that he was, as usual, shy of speech as to 
all that personally concerned himself. 

“ I can wait,” she said, quickly. “ I know I 
shall like it.” When he was away, — yes, it would 
be better then. She would read it twice. And of 
late she had got a German dictionary and much 
bettered what had always been a fair knowledge 
of that tongue. 

“ I shall like you to like it,” he returned, simply. 
“ And to go back to what we were discussing, I 
suppose old countries must have conventional laws, 
but sometimes I envy the personal freedom of your 
half- tamed land. A man may do so much more as 
he likes, and” — he hesitated — “ as — as seems best 
and most right. Sometimes one rebels. I felt that 
once and quite enough, but since I have been away 
I have felt it more. Do you think a man ought 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


167 


to be ashamed of yielding to what he knows are 
absurd social rules, the growth of centuries, things 
that have obtained the despotism of instincts ?” 

“ I hardly understand you,” said Bessy. “ You 
should put it more clearly.” She was really at a loss. 

“ Ach ! I talk foolishness.” 

“No, only half sense. You are, I should think, 
a man likely to do what you know to be right.” 

“ But I do not know. That is the trouble.” 

“Will not time help you?” She was getting 
more and more uneasy and more and more dubious. 

“ Time brings in too many counsellors, and there 
is foolishness in that, as we know. Might I put a 
case to you ? You are of all women I ever knew 
the most capable of being just. I ” 

“ I would rather not,” said Bessy, decisively. 

“ Perhaps you are right,” he returned, moodily. 
“ And yet you will pardon me, I am sure. I am 
buffeted about by a mob of motives, and it is hardly 
fair to talk as I have done, giving half knowledge 
and craving whole advice.” She was silent, and 
he went on abstractedly : “ My young life on a 
great estate was bad for me. I was too much with 
inferiors. Eton was better; and my army life, I 
suppose, helped again to make me despotic.” 

“ No, — positive, authoritative,” she interposed. 

“ Well, that, if you please. As to my brief expe- 
rience of diplomacy, I hated it, and when my uncle’s 
death made me independent I began to wander, 
and now here I am, a rolling Saxon stone.” And 
he laughed. “ You have long had a friend’s right 
to know more of my life, but ” 


168 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Oh, I understand,” she said, smiling. 

“ I believe you do, always, wonderfully.” 

“ Thank you,” she said, frankly. “ You are 
going away ” 

“ Yes, but I hope to return in summer. You 
will not quite forget me?” And he rose. 

“ I shall not,” she said, looking up. “ But if I 
were in any risk of forgetting the only friend chance 
has sent me, Paul would hardly let me. You are 
his one hero. Really, it is amusing to see how 
much he thinks of you.” 

“Ah! that is not bad flattery. How can one 
have too much of such friendliness? Tell him a 
good-by for me.” 

“ He will be up to see you off. And so you are 
going? Well, good-by again.” 

He said he would get away early, — a man would 
carry his traps, — and so left her. 

Mrs. Preston sat awhile, her work in her lap, 
thinking. Yever before had Riverius talked as 
much or as nearly of his own affairs. What had 
he meant ? A subtler or vainer woman might have 
guessed his riddle and in the closeness of self sus- 
pected the nature of it. She was incapable of these 
sudden feminine suspicions as to another, but was 
more competent to reason out some comprehension 
of his dimly-seen difficulty. At last it came upon 
her with the force of a blow. Was she directly 
concerned in his indecision ? She flushed. Annoy- 
ance, pride, distinct anger at the position, in turn 
affected her. More and more disturbed, she went 
to bed, and lay awake, thinking, and little knowing 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


169 


that at the same time Riverius was walking to and 
fro in his cabin, as much troubled as herself. He 
packed his valise, put away many articles, locked 
the trunks he was to leave behind him, and then 
stood before the fire, reflecting. He wished that he 
had ended his doubt when he was last in America. 
How it was harder; and yet his profound sense of 
obligation to Mrs. Preston, which had once almost 
annoyed him, he gladly felt was merged in a general 
conviction of the need his life had for this woman. 
It was a more healthy state of mind. Natures like 
his resent obligation, and acknowledge no capacity 
of requital. But love pays all debts, and he was 
close to the belief that all else in life was nothing 
without this woman, and was fast becoming rec- 
onciled to having owed his life to her. He was 
helped, too, by the assurance he felt that her gentle 
soul seemed to have utterly forgotten the service. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


Riverius left on a Saturday, and the day seemed 
of the longest to Elizabeth Preston. 

All strong emotions have their sequent moods of 
tire, elation, or depression. To-day she was help- 
less in the grasp of active discontent, — ill pleased 
with herself, unreasonably displeased with Riverius. 
The wind blew warm from the south. A deluge of 
rain cleared the trees of the ice and snow, and the 
heavy air seemed to foster her mood of melancholy. 
As a rule, she was unirritable, and of an easy natu- 
ral gentleness. Saint Temperament is a good saint ; 
but now she was short, even with Paul, cross to 
Becky, and more and more vexed with herself, as 
she recalled the conclusions to which an intelligent 
study of herself had brought her. But, reason 
anew on it all as she might, her mental machinery 
was too good to evolve for her any of the fallacies 
with which lower natures cheat themselves. There 
are certain truths which, like the eyes of a fair 
portrait, follow us implacably. 

The Sunday which came after that unhappy Sat- 
urday Bessy long remembered. All day, into the 
afternoon, it rained hard, and Paul and she stayed 
within-doors. The lesson of the day, and the 
psalm, were read in their usual routine, and then 
Paul loitered over a book, or, only half attentive, 
looked up or went to the door to see if there was 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


171 


any prospect that the steady down-pour would ever 
end. At times he put the neglected author aside 
and chatted with his mother, who gave him, this 
day, hut a divided attention. 

It was now suddenly borne in on the boy’s mind 
that she looked very young. Of late he had been 
half aware of a fresh touch of youthful gayety in 
her ways and manner. She had taken with the 
daily bread of life a sudden draught of its elixir. 
He said, with a little shyness (as if it were a deli- 
cate matter), “How old are you, mother? I was 
wondering, yesterday.” 

Bessy put down her book and smiled. “ Why 
do you ask ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t rightly know. Mr. Riverius said — 
he said I was awfully big to be your son.” 

“ Mr. Riverius is very impertinent, Master Paul. 
You are a pair of gossips. Am I — do I look so 
very old ?” 

Paul had the well-mannered child’s dislike to 
hearing a parent spoken of as old. 

“ Old ! old !” he returned, reproachfully. “ He 
said no such thing ; and I didn’t say it.” Then he 
let fall his book and went over and kissed her. “ I 
do think you are so pretty, mother. I asked Mr. 
Riverius once if he didn’t think you were pretty ; 
and what do you think he said ?” 

By this time Bessy began to be conscious of hav- 
ing more blood in her face than was pleasant, and, 
since, like murder, blushes will out, she feared 
detection : they did not seem fully to explain 
themselves. She was getting annoyed. 


172 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I am sure,” she said, quickly, “ that Mr. Rive- 
rius never meant you to repeat his talk.” 

“ Oh, but it wasn’t anything much. He just 
said ” 

“ Ho matter what he said.” nevertheless she 
was as eager as a child to know. 

“ But he said I was foolish, — that when I grew 
up and saw many women I would know better.” 

“ Oh, indeed !” said Bessy. “ Was that what 
he said ? I cannot see why you made such a fuss 
over it.” 

“ Oh, but that wasn’t all !” exclaimed Paul, 
considering that now she had given him leave to 
speak. “ He said you were noble-looking, and that 
you had a woman’s head and a child’s heart. I 
think that was very nice of him.” 

“ I think it was,” said Bessy, humbly. “ But 
never tell him you told me. He would cease to 
talk to you as a friend if he thought every light 
word was reported to me. Remember, Paul.” 

The manner of the rebuke was stern, the face 
whence it came was joyous. 

He stood beside her as he spoke, looking up. 
“You aren’t angry, mother?” he said. “I didn’t 
mean — I ” 

“ Honsense !” she cried, and caught him in her 
arms and kissed him again and again. Usually to 
him she was gently affectionate. The little out- 
break of demonstrative tenderness had more sources 
than the boy could have dreamed of. 

“ There, go,” she cried, laughing, and pushing 
him away. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


173 


“ The rain is over. It is clearing. I think I 
shall walk down to the mill. The hill-slopes will 
not be as had as the level.” 

With a word or two more, he left her. 

She rose and looked out. 

The cabin felt close. One has in-door moods, 
and out-door moods, in which it is punishment to 
be between four walls. She longed to be out and 
moving. 

She caught up a chip hat and tied its flaps down 
to guard her from the increasing sunshine. Then 
she pinned up her skirts, being minded to walk 
at ease, and went on to the porch. 

The rain had fallen all day from a windless sky, 
gradually becoming less and less, till it was now but 
a white mist in the lower air, and of purer whiteness 
because of the westering sun yet high above it. Two 
or three inches of soft snow were on the ground, 
and here and there deeper drifts, wet and treacher- 
ous. The air was strangely warm. She looked 
down at her stout shoes, buttoned her jacket of 
squirrel-skins, the product of Riverius’s skill, and, 
standing, wondered at the beauty of the scene be- 
fore her. 

A mood of elation had taken the place of the 
depression of the day before. Looking to and fro, 
she had a joyous sense of being in just relation 
with the still day, the well-bathed woods, the misty 
whiteness of the sunlit haze. She was too happy 
for successful analysis, yet she tried, for a sweet 
moment, to make out the sources of her pleasurable 
mood. But the motions of the heart can no one 


174 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


self-understand, or watch in the mirror of con- 
sciousness, any more than one can see his material 
eyes move in the glass which seems so truthfully 
to reflect them. 

She stood thinking a little while, and then got 
away from the faint effort to see herself, and sur- 
rendered to the bribes of a perfect day. 

A positive sense of health and vigor of mind 
and body possessed her. Crossing the clearing, 
she entered the woods. Everywhere she saw the 
blackened tree-trunks and noted how the mists 
were swiftly disappearing in the absolute stillness 
of the air, in which not a twig stirred overhead. 
Between the net-work of branches the blue sky 
was visible in its rain-washed purity of hue. No- 
ticing, as singular, the quietness of the forest-spaces, 
she came of a sudden into a rather open grove of 
firs, spruce, and young pines, and gave a little 
shiver of pure joy. On every pendent needle, and 
at the tips and edges of every naked twig, the 
quiet, slowly-ceasing rain had left beads and fringes 
of clear water-drops. Through these the sun cast 
its white light, so that it split into a million little 
fan-like expansions of colors. Everywhere about 
were inconceivable myriads of jewels hung from 
twig and stem and pendent pine-needles. In all 
her wood-life she had never before seen this rare 
and lovely sight, for which that unfrequent thing, 
a windless slowly-falling rain, is indispensable. Its 
splendors matched her mood of joy. She wished 
for Paul, and then for Riverius, and went on smiling 
and happy. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


175 


Now in a hollow the mist lay like little white 
lakes, and now a bank of beaded brown moss 
caught her eye, and now the stateliness of some 
single pine surprised her with its look of authori- 
tative vigor. 

Walking swiftly and with keen enjoyment of 
the use of wholesome limbs which knew not tire, 
she descended the slope which led to the mill-site. 

The building stood in a clearing where trees and 
shrubs had been cleanly cut away for fear of the 
ever-dreaded accident of fire. The framework 
partly hid the opposite bank. Stepping aside, in- 
tending to cross the brook, she paused abruptly. 

On the farther shore stood Philetus, erect, bare- 
headed, silent, looking up at the sky, his sightless 
eyes unmindful of the sun. 

For a moment she was about to speak, but some- 
thing in his manner excited her curiosity, and she 
waited, watchful. 

The keen ears of the blind man detected the 
noise of her step. 

“ Who is there?” he said. 

She remained silent, until, thinking himself de- 
ceived, he looked up again, his lips moving as if 
in whispered speech. At intervals he passed a 
hand quickly across his brow or turned his head as 
if to listen. At last he spoke. Alone as he thought 
himself, some stringent passionate need forced from 
his lips the troubling results of thoughts too keenly 
felt for silent guard. 

Bessy instantly knew herself to be in the position 
of a listener who has no right to hear; but also a 
12 


t 


176 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


certain fear, or rather awe, controlled her, — some* 
thing more than mere curiosity. 

Many times before, she had noticed as singular 
his increasing habit of moving his lips, as if speak- 
ing things which had to find their way into some 
form of speech. 

At least it was thus, and justly, that she ex- 
plained this inarticulate speech, which was generally 
accompanied by an expression of sombre intensity 
of self-occupation. The next instant he spoke, at 
first in a broken whisper, but in a moment clearly 
and in a full loud voice : 

“ Don’t he say as vengeance is his ? and isn’t it 
writ as he will repay them as does his justice on 
the wicked ?” 

“ Oh !” exclaimed Bessy, shocked at his critical 
analysis of that terrible text which makes vengeance 
the unshared property of Grod. 

Her faint cry caught the quick ear of Philetus. 
“ What’s that ? Who’s there ?” he said. 

She made no answer. For a while he moved to 
and fro among the trees, seeming at last to forget 
his alarm. By and by he came out again to the 
brook-side, and leaned moodily against a dead tree 
shivered by lightning, now and then feeling its 
broken bark, here and there, with the restless fin- 
gers of his right hand. Soon the lips moved again, 
then were at rest, then moved more freely, and, as 
before, broke at length into passionate speech : 

“ ‘ He has said to me in the night season, Burn ; 
he has said to me in the daylight, Slay ; the woman 
that deceiveth shall surely die ; the man that be- 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


177 


guileth shall perish ; fire shall follow him, fire shall 
devour his substance.’ It’s gettin’ clearer. Thar’s 
this here tree as he smote with lightnin’, or he 
might of minded to rot it with worms, or vex it 
with galls, or put it in my head to ruin it with an 
axe. Ain’t it him all the same as does it ?” 

The idea appeared to please Philetus ; a sense of 
satisfaction was visible on his face ; he seemed to 
have found for himself a reasonable justification. 
Leaving the blasted tree, he moved to the brook, 
felt with his foot for the planks, and crossed them 
steadily. 

He came straight towards Bessy, and seemed to 
regard her so fixedly that she could hardly escape 
from the feeling that he saw. 

Hot two yards away he paused, she silent, hardly 
daring to breathe. For the first time, Philetus 
appeared to her as a possible source of evil, and 
with startling clearness she comprehended his con- 
dition and read but too plainly the meaning of his 
words. 

He was so near that he could almost have touched 
her, when he spoke again. “ Voices by night and 
by day, — voices, — voices.” And so, with his head 
in the air, well set hack after the way of the blind, 
he moved through the woods and towards Bessy’s 
distant cabin, muttering as he went. 

At times he paused, hearing in his ears cries 
as of urgent imperative counsellors. There were 
moments of doubt, but the incessant is a terrible 
despot; and ever and ever, by day and by night, 
strange whispers were as an eager, restless atmos- 


178 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


phere round about him. lie answered, as they 
spoke, or made comments under his breath, as if 
fearing to speak aloud. 

Behind him at some little distance came the 
woman, anxious, pitiful, no longer afraid ; for many 
things cast out fear. 

Philetus kept his path steadily athwart the for- 
est, now touching a barked tree, now pausing, and 
soon settling his doubts so as for a while to move 
on as if certain of his way. Cultivated capacities 
enabled the blind man to move at ease where mere 
untrained eyes had been valueless. 

"Woodmen find it hard or impossible to tell you 
how, at night, they pass with directness through 
the darkened forest; and it would have been hard 
for Philetus to analyze the means by which he 
guided his steps. It was certain, of late, that he 
did it less well, finding it impossible at times to 
give the needed attention to the limited aid his 
senses afforded. Voices, none but he could hear, 
troubled and distracted him. For days they were 
gone or faintly heard, and again, as now, they 
screamed in his ears wild and eager counsels. 

He stopped, turned around, touched one or two 
trees, and then, at last, stood still. As Mrs. Pres- 
ton cautiously came near, she saw that he wore a 
look of painful puzzle. 

He said aloud, after his frequent fashion of self- 
communing, “ Pm a-losin’ my cunnin’ ; ’tain’t nat’- 
ral I should git so bothered. Nothin’ ’ain’t hap- 
pened ; here’s me, and here’s the wood, and I’m 
lost. I’d hate Consider for to know that.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


179 


As he ceased to speak, Mrs. Preston called 
aloud, — 

“ Is that you, Philetus ? How very lucky ! How 
should I ever have found my way in this ridiculous 
tangle ?” 

As she spoke, she came to his side. 

“Mornin’, Madam Preston,” said Philetus. 
“ Rightly, it ain’t mornin’; but, bein’ blinded, a 
man don’t keep just ’count of time. Lost your 
way, did you say ?” 

“ Yes. It isn’t easy, Philetus, and it is getting 
well on in the day, too; I never was forced to 
camp out alone, and this time you will save me.” 

“ How you city folks git dazed like, and wood- 
wild, is past comprehendin’.” 

For a moment a mischievous desire to insist on 
his leading the way crossed Bessy’s mind; but 
another glance at the perturbed face checked her 
mirthful purpose. 

“ How absurd it is !” she exclaimed. “ Why, 
if I had only turned half around I should have 
seen the two burnt pines at the turn of the lower 
ox-road. Come, Philetus; I shall not need your 
help. How is Miriam ? There’s the ox-road.” 

He followed her, answering as he went that all 
was well at home. Of a truth, her coming had 
been a vast relief. He could never have brought 
himself to own that his boasted wood-craft had 
failed him. As to this, and some other matters, 
he was singularly vain. They turned into the ox- 
road, and could now walk side by side. 

“ Where were you going, Philetus ?” she said. 

12 * 


180 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“I was a-wanderin’. Of a Sabbath I like to go 
to and fro in the woods, I’ve got to be that uneasy 
at home.” 

“ What makes you uneasy ?” 

He turned his head as if to look at her. 

“ Did I say as I was uneasy ?” 

“ Yes ; that is what you said.” 

44 Well, I am. I’m that pestered. Do you think 
the devil can talk loud in a man’s ears so’s no man 
else can hear? Oh, the tongues he must know!” 

44 Does he talk to you ?” 

44 1 never said it.” 

44 1 think people get such fancies ; and perhaps 
whiskey helps to make them. He seems far away 
this quiet Sunday. The woods are still and cool 
with the rain, and all the leaves are shining, and 
the birds are calling, and the squirrels are busy, 
and over us the white clouds are drifting, and now 
above it is blue, and now a gray- white, through 
the rifts in the woods. The peace of the woods, 
Philetus, seems to me to pass all understanding.” 

As she spoke, a gentle look of calm came over 
his face. 

He had the rare love for nature which seems to 
be born in some, and which no education can pro- 
duce, and he was thankful because of the pains she 
took to make him aware of the woodland beauty. 

He was now quiet in mind. At all times Bessy 
controlled him. There is something delicately fine 
in the way certain natures act one on another for 
good. The goodness of mere commonplace people 
is often valueless; the setting is something. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


181 


He said, “ Yes, ma’am. There’s texts that has 
no need to be bob-tailed with sermons; there’s 
texts that preaches themselves; and when a man 
says to me, ‘ the peace of the woods,’ which might 
be the same as God’s peace, or jus’ a part of his 
peace, — when he says ‘ that passeth all under- 
standing’ it jus’ gives a man the notion of what a 
small little thing it is, that there understanding and 
how it gives out, like, when it gits sot to study in’ 
God Almighty. I ’ain’t really had no peace these 
few days. There’s a singin’ and a sayin’ and a coun- 
seling in my head like to drive me mad. Come 
an hour, it’s clean gone, like as it never had been. 
That’s peace, — God’s peace. Fact is, it does seem 
’s if all right honest-minded peace might be his, 
anyways. It ain’t a thing of understanding and 
you did kind of make it plain to my blindness. 
Now, Myry ’ain’t got that gift at all. Why, Mrs. 
Preston, she don’t hardly know a pine from a pop- 
lar; and when I told her last week the turkey-foot 
ferns was a heap more like peacocks than turkeys, 
she never knowed what I meant; and the pride of 
the things! it jus’ sticks out!” 

“ Well, she can see a cobweb far enough, Phile- 
tus. And who can beat Myry’s rolls ? I couldn’t 
make one of them if I were to study a year.” 

“ Might be,” said Philetus, complacently. “ I 
kin cook a bit myself.” He was reflecting, not un- 
pleased, upon the range and variety of his own 
gifts, and moved along smilingly. 

“ This is the ox- road,” said Bessy. “ Wasn’t it 
stupid of me to lose myself? Come home with me 


182 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


and have supper ; or shall you go back home before 
dark ?” 

“ I carries my night round with me always. It 
don’t make no difference to me what’s the time of 
day. Folks don’t git used to thinkin’ that.” 

“ Of course ; I knew. Will you come ?” 

“ Ho ; I’ll go back. What was that thar noise I 
heerd ?” 

“ Noise. I heard nothing.” 

“ Thought I heerd it. Wasn’t nuthin’, I guess.” 

But his face grew suddenly anxious, and his 
head turned aside as if to hear. He at once sus- 
pected that what he heard had been one of the 
many noises which bewildered his brain, and he 
became instantly cautious, reticent, and suspicious. 

“ Sit down a little,” said Mrs. Preston. “ I am 
in no haste. Here, on this log.” And she plucked 
at his sleeve. 

Hesitating a moment, he sat down. 

“Was you wantin’ me to bide fur anythin’ per- 
tickeler ?” 

“ No, no ; nothing, except that I wanted to ask 
you what is the matter with you of late. You 
mutter to yourself; you speak aloud at times and 
say such strange things ; you look so disturbed, 
and honestly, Philetus, what’s the matter ?” 

“ Oh, it ain’t nuthin’.” 

He was at once on guard. Like all persons with 
his peculiar form of mental trouble, he was very 
frank until taught by experience that anybody dis- 
believed him. Then he became cunning, watchful, 
indisposed to talk of his torments or temptations. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


183 


“ You are not speaking the truth, Philetus. We 
have been good friends, and now I want to help 
you. By this time you must know how much I 
want to help you.” 

“I ’ain’t no need,” he said, rising hastily. “I 
guess it’s wearin’ on towards evenin’. I must go.” 

“ But, Philetus ” 

“ I ’ain’t the time to hide. I left Myry alone. 
Good-evenin’, Mrs. Preston.” 

She made no further effort to stay him, and he 
strode away through the woods, leaving her seated, 
deep in thought, on the crumbling log. 


CHAPTER XI Y. 


A week passed by, and then another, and the too 
eventless life of their cabin continued. The first 
day of spring had lured Bessy to a seat under the 
porch, and, quite alone, she sat now sewing, now 
letting her work fall on her lap and staring into the 
woodland spaces as if in their depths were answers 
to her questioning fancies. At last she heard Paul’s 
voice, and saw him tumble himself over the snake 
fence in his haste, and then beheld him, too breath- 
less to speak, at her side. 

“ Mother ! mother !” he exclaimed. 

“ Take time,” she said. “ Be quiet. Wait. 
Now, then, what is it ?” 

“ The mill is burned down. I knew it would be.” 

“ That is bad news,” she said. 

“ Yes, and Mr. Riverius away, and no one at 
work there.” 

“ Why, Paul, it must have been set afire by some 
one maliciously. Was it still burning ?” 

“ No. It might have been done some days. It’s 
off the ox-roads, and no one lives near it. Philetus 
is the nearest.” 

“ Philetus !” she said. 

“ Yes. What’s the matter, mother ?” 

“ Nothing. I must go in and write to Mr. Rive- 
rius. My letter can go to Pierson’s camp. That is 
the quickest way.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


185 


Then she went in. She wrote at once to the 
German, merely telling him of the loss. Iler own 
mind was pretty clear as to the author of the mis- 
chief, hut she was not altogether certain, and she 
saw no good in detailing her suspicions. H or were 
these to remain quite undisturbed. The day after 
her letter had gone, she heard the voice of Philetus 
in the kitchen. Of late he rarely came to the cabin, 
except to use her ox-cart to fetch in the wood he 
was chopping. How he was deep in talk with 
Becky, who had asked him what he thought had 
made the mill burn down. Mrs. Preston called 
him. 

“ Good-morning, Philetus,” she said. “ All well 
at home ?” 

“ Yes. We ain’t ill off, thanks to you, ma’am. 
Might he harder times.” 

“ I heard you speak of Mr. Biverius’s mill.” 

“ It was spoke of to me.” 

“ Yes, I know. Who set that afire, Philetus ?” 

“ Lightnin’, maybe.” 

“ Honsense ! — at this season.” 

“ I’ve seen lightnin’ afore, in February.” 

“ But we have had none.” 

“ That’s so.” And he was silent. 

“ I think, myself, Philetus, that it was the work 
of malice.” 

“Ho, no; not malice. God’s judgment ain’t 
malice.” 

“ What do you mean ?” 

“Well, ther’s people as thinks he deserved it, — 
him that owned that mill.” 


186 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“What?” 

“ Else how could it have chanced ?” 

“ It did not chance. You all hate him. The 
more kind he is to you, the more you hate him. 
Some one of you did this to hurt a man you dare 
not face. Some coward did it. Perhaps ’twas that 
wolf Ance, who remembers his punishment.” 

“ ’Twasn’t Ance.” 

“ Why do you say so ? How do you know ?” 

“ ’Tain’t like Ance.” 

“ Do you know who did it ?” 

“ If I do, I ain’t minded to say. Him as done it 
might have been a firebrand in the hands of the 
Lord.” 

“ Stuff! Ho, you cannot go.” 

He was moving away. She laid a hand on his 
arm. He paused. 

“Was it you who burned the mill ?” 

“ Ho ; I didn’t do it.” 

“You would not lie to me, Philetus: that I am 
sure of.” 

She was glad of his denial, yet puzzled and 
doubtful. 

As she spoke, he went away, without uttering 
another word, and presently crossed the clearing, 
and, entering the woods, sat down on a stump. By 
and by he said, aloud, “ When the hand of God 
air on a man, and he air a-speakin’ to him and 
a-preachin’, that thar man he does as lie’s hid. 
’Tain’t him, but the Lord. I said it wasn’t me, and 
it wasn’t.” 

After this logical settlement with conscience he 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


187 


lit his pipe and went hack tranquilly to his work in 
the pines. 

The news of the burning of the mill and also of 
Piverius’s sudden departure had been much dis- 
cussed in the camps, where his famous victory over 
Ance had excited great amazement. A few be- 
lieved he had left in fear of further trouble, hut the 
common sense of those who had seen his battle led 
them to take another view. 

It cannot be said that his absence was felt. His 
wood-gangs worked as usual, his money was duly 
received, and his men paid, hut his reserve and ten- 
dency to hold himself aloof had made him far more 
disliked than much worse peculiarities would have 
done. Philetus was glad of his absence. He more 
than any one else was annoyed at the German’s 
personal disinclination to accept him on even terms, 
and now, at least, he would be at ease as to Miriam 
for a time, for as to this Philetus had a feeling 
which certainly passed the line of healthy thought. 
The blind are suspicious, and never since Phil had 
overheard their laughing talk had he been quite free 
from the feeling referred to. Miriam’s moodiness 
and tears, really due to the persecution of Ance and 
his influence on her husband, the latter put to the 
credit of the German, and the malevolent effects 
of a fixed idea were becoming more and more 
serious. The mystically minded are of all men 
the most apt to be illogical, are above others prone 
to he disturbed mentally by the permanent enter- 
tainment of a false belief which seems at last to 
become a part of the structure of the mind and 


188 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


to affect all its decisions. Moreover, Philetus had 
a vast conception of his own sagacity, and greatly 
overestimated his capacity both to observe and to 
reason. His chosen comrades either flattered him 
or, as in the case of Alice, found in his beliefs a 
cover for their own schemes. In the domain of 
morbid psychology the terrible effects of these abso- 
lute and false ideas are well understood, and they 
are among the many causes which lead to inexpli- 
cable crimes. As to money, Philetus was, on the 
whole, easy, as Mrs. Preston was still able to give 
him employment and now and then to help his 
troubled wife. 

Meanwhile, the spring went by, and they rarely 
had news of Piverius. It was late in May, and, 
moved by a visit from Miriam, who had come over 
to beseech Mrs. Preston to speak to Philetus of 
his increasing ill temper and bad habits, Bessy 
went out into the woods a mile or so from home to 
seek the woodman. The day was pleasant. In the 
deeper hollows among the rocks a little snow still 
lay. The arbutus was ripe again, &nd the dogwood 
lit the woods anew. A pleasant calm was on all 
her being, a mood which made her light of heart 
with some assurance that for her life was not yet 
over. She went along gayly humming a song, and 
presently saw Philetus sitting on a log, his face in 
his hands. 

He turned, rose at her coming, and said, “ I 
heerd your step, ma’am. What might you want ?” 

“ Sit down,” she said, seating herself. “ I want 
to talk to you.” He obeyed her silently. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 1$9 

“ I am troubled about you of late, Philetus,” she 
said, kindly. 

“And you ain’t any more than I am. Things 
don’t go ’long as the Lord meant ’em to go. Myry 
does nothin’, ’most, but cry and jus’ go round 
stupid like. Somethin’s on her mind. And the 
little one ain’t half looked arter, and I’m jus’ done 
out with ’em.” 

“ Perhaps you are the cause, Philetus. You go 
about with bad men. You drink. Oh, don’t stop 
me. You do. You half do your work. What is 
the matter?” 

“ Ef I drink, it’s because I’m in trouble,” he 
said ; “ and a man can’t work ef he’s got things on 
his mind.” 

“ What is it that troubles you ?” 

“ I don’t keer to talk it over. A man’s bothers 
is best kep’ to himself.” 

“ Have I not been your friend ? Why not speak 
to me ? Is it Ance ?” she said, doubtfully. 

“ Ho ; it ain’t him.” 

“ Well, who is it?” 

“ I ain’t a-goin’ to tell,” he said, positively. 
“~You ain’t the one I’d soonest tell, anyways. 
Don’t you go to ask me, nuther. I can’t talk about 
it. I darsn’t think about it. It’s that, — that,” he 
said, tapping his head, “and it’s made me do things 
I wasn’t bid to do. It fetches me visions, in the 
night and in the day, — things I see in’ardly. Some- 
times I think I ain’t ’countable.” 

“ You must be ill,” said Bessy. “ Why do you 
not stop drinking ?” 


190 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I can’t do it. It ain’t Ance. He’s minded 
now to quit drink himself, but I ain’t. It makes 
me comfortable, drink does. It puts away them 
visions.” 

“ Nonsense !” said Bessy, authoritatively. “ The 
drink is killing you, body and soul. You must 
stop. Once for all, it must stop. I cannot have a 
half-drunken man about, and I will not.” 

“ I kin go,” be said, quietly, lifting his axe and 
rising. 

She was puzzled. To cast him off meant new 
trouble for wife and child. 

“ No,” she said. “ You must stay and try 
harder. I want to help, not hurt you.” 

“I know,” he returned. “It ain’t no use.” 

“ It must be. Go on with your work here. Try 
to do it better, and pray God to help you. I know 
you will succeed.” 

He paused in thought. “ Ain’t a man got a privi- 
lege to right himself when there’s somebody doin’ 
him a wrong ?” 

“ No ; God rights all wrongs, soon or late, — all 
wrongs. But are you sure any one has wronged 
you ?” 

“ I know it. God ain’t more sure.” 

“ Hush ! I won’t have you talking in that way.” 

“Well, a man’s got to hide by his own acts. 
He’s a fool to go on lashin’ himself and jus’ 
thinkin’ and thinkin’ ef he’s done ri<rht.” 

“ What have you done ?” 

“ There ain’t no law for to make a man tell aghn’ 
himself.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


191 


“ I am not the law. What is it ?” She began 
to he both troubled and suspicious. 

“ No, I know that, too ; but I’ve done a heap 
of loose talkin’ I wasn’t minded to do, and I ain’t 
goin’ to do no more. Ef you want me to go I’ll 
go, and ef you want me to stay I’ll stay, and that’s 
all ther’ is of it.” 

“Well, I will say no more. Remember Myry 
and the child, and try to think over what I have 
said. When Mr. Riverius comes hack I will ask 
him to give you work again.” She had exhausted 
her resources. 

“ Ryverus !” he murmured, and then, in louder 
tones, “ I don’t do no work for him. He hadn’t 
oughter give me work. He ain’t cornin’ hack soon, 
air he ?” There was almost terror in his voice as 
he spoke. 

“ Why not?” said Mrs. Preston, surprised. 

“ I hate him !” he exclaimed. “ Don’t you he 
tliinkin’ I’m afeerd to tell him. I’ve been nigh it. 
I’ve been nigh it. Twice I seed him come to my 
house at night, and when I got up he was gone. 
What fetched him there? The Lord knows. I 
don’t give no ’count of myself to nobody, hut 
when you git Ryverus to ask me to work for him 
you’ll be makin’ a mistake.” 

“ Are you crazy ? What on earth do you mean 
by such nonsense ? Let me hear no more of it.” 

“ I’ve said enough, and too much,” he returned. 
“ Is it bide or leave, ma’am ?” 

“ As you please,” she said, much annoyed. 

“ Then I’ll stay till he comes.” And he turned 

13 


192 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


away, while she walked past him into the wood, 
deep id thought. Could he have burned the mill ? 
— and why? Nothing that she knew or guessed 
explained the matter fully, but she saw clearly 
enough that Philetus was not quite well in mind. 
Strange he had always been, but his present mood 
was inexplicable, and quite unlike his former phases 
of oddness, in which there had certainly been noth- 
ing to cause anxiety. As concerned Piverius, it 
troubled her greatly ; but what could she do ? At 
least when he came she would tell him, — that was 
a clear and simple duty, — but, after that, how help- 
less she was ! Had he deserved the evident dis- 
like he had aroused among these wild lumbermen ? 
She "was not of the women whom love makes blind, 
but the very reserve and masterful ways of John 
Piverius were things she did not find unpleasant, 
although she could have wished that for his own 
sake he had been able or willing to suppress them 
at need. As to any just cause for the hatred Phile- 
letus had so frankly expressed, she was still at a 
loss. 

A few days later, Miriam came over to thank 
her. The strong protest of a healthy, positive per- 
son had had for a time the useful value in the way 
of control which it temporarily exerts over per- 
sons in the state of mind which beset Philetus. 
The influence did not last very long; and when, 
the week after, Paul told her he had come upon 
Philetus in the woods near the burned mill, kneel- 
ing as if in silent prayer, her suspicions as to his 
share in the fire became stronger. She spoke of 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


193 


them to no one, but, being a woman resolute as to 
any duty, went almost daily into the forest where 
Philetus was at work. One morning she carried 
him some trifle for the fair Ophelia or bade him 
come and eat his noon-meal at her cabin. An- 
other time it was tobacco, of which he was fond. 
This persistency was winged with many motives, 
not all selfish. As long as she kept as it were 
touch of him, she saw that he was less moody 
and drank none. Resolute natures which know 
also how to be sweet exercise vast influence over 
men. The devil does not own all the sugar. With 
pretty cunning, Bessy put aside Riverius as if for- 
gotten, and, taking Paul for company, chatted with 
Philetus of the woods and river and of natural 
things as to which he was curiously interesting, 
liking well to be questioned. Then, too, she en- 
listed Consider Kinsman, who, glad to be thought 
an ally, had mournfully, and with lack of compre- 
hending it, watched his friend’s degradation, much 
as an intelligent Newfoundland dog might note 
with vague sadness change in the master. The 
kindly task she set herself did Bessy Preston good. 
She took trouble about it and gave it thought, and 
was sternly set upon winning her gentle game, as 
was natural to her as to all things, small or large, 
which had flavor of duty. The old fellow saw in 
part her object, but, liking the method, stood still, 
like a restless horse of a mind to have his way but 
flattered by the pleasant touch. 

“ How do you do, Consider? What a delightful 
morning!” She spoke to him slowly, and, as he 


194 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


sharply watched the ripe curves of a mouth a little 
too large for mere beauty, he as usual understood 
her words. 

He smiled. “ I felt a woodpecker a-tappin’ on a 
tree down near the brook. That’s a sure sign of 
spring, ma’am.” 

“ What do you call this ?” said Paul, putting a 
plant in the palm of Philetus. 

“ It’s a corpse-light,” he returned, casting away 
the gray, dank stem of ominous name. “ It’s bad 
luck to have that there weed come early.” 

Paul laughed. “ Bad luck ! What is luck, any- 
how ?” 

“ Put aP before it, Paul,” exclaimed his mother. 
“Luck is the excuse of the weak, — bad luck, that 
is.” And she laughed at her little proverb. 

“ There ain’t no luck, really,” said Philetus. 
“ Things is sot for to happen, and some things is 
sot for to git us ready. There’s warnin’s by beasts, 
and warnin’s by plants, like as whispers of God 
afore he talks out things as is to be.” 

Consider regarded his friend with interest, wag- 
ging an approving head, and but partially catching 
the words, while Bessy, not thinking the talk 
wholesome for Philetus, said, “ Give me his pipe, 
Paul.” 

The hoy took it from the old man’s pocket, 
whence, as usual, it protruded a well-blackened 
bowl. Bessy filled it from a pouch in her lap and 
handed both to the woodman. “ I have brought 
you some excellent tobacco,” she said. 

“ And I just done mine. How you women know 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


195 


things is past believin’.” Then he struck a match 
on his corduroys, and drew a long draught of the 
pleasant weed. 

“ What’s this ?” he said, suddenly. “ That’s 
Ryverus’s baccy. Knowed it, I did ! None for me ! 
none for me !” And he absently emptied the pipe 
and extended his hand with the pouch to the giver. 
Paul looked his surprise, but Bessy at once threw 
out the tobacco and came to the blind man’s side. 
It was as he had said. Riverius had left on her 
table by chance a package of the brand he com- 
monly smoked. 

“ I thought it might be too weak for you,” she 
said. “I made the pouch. Here it is. I have 
emptied it. I will get you some stronger tobacco.” 

“ Made it for me ?” he returned. 

“ Yes.” 

“I didn’t have no notion to offend,” he said, 
simply. “ Smells is awful ’minders. They’ve power 
as is wonderful for to fetch back things as ther’s no 
reason for considerin’.” 

“I have noticed that,” she returned. “Remind 
me to fill the bag. How is Miriam ?” 

“ Oh, she’s bettered some.” 

Bessy smiled, well pleased. “And Ophelia?” 

His face lit up. “ Oh, she’s all right. She’s jus’ 
a-noddin’ and a-wavin’ about like one of them 
Quaker-ladies in June time. You can’t do nuthin’ 
w’en that child’s round but jus’ ’tend to her, she’s 
that exactin’.” 

“ She is like a Quaker-lady,” said Paul, who had 
looked on with interest, a little puzzled. 

13 * 


196 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


The blind man had pocketed the pouch and 
taken up his axe to go to work at the wood he was 
hewing. He struck right and left on the log at his 
feet, and then paused. “ Paul knowed she was 
like a Quaker-lady, hut I knowed it more in’ardly. 
’Tain’t every one gits a man’s meanin’.” 

“ Ho,” said Bessy. “ And there may be many 
meanings.” She was humoring his mood. 

“ That’s so. Ther’s that about considerin’ the 
lilies of the field. How, that were real ripe 
preachin’. Ther’s moral in ’em fur smell and fur 
seein’. Ther’ ain’t none for hearin’. Might mean 
we’re to l’arn all ’bout ’em. All on ’em. All the 
multitude of things that grows. Some air like 
people. Ther’s good and bad, and them as blos- 
soms soon, and some as is patient and keeps you 
a-thinkin’ the frost ’ill catch ’em and they won’t 
come to nothin’. And then, fur to justify the Lord, 
they busts open and spites the frosty days with 
prettiness.” 

“ Like golden-rod,” said Paul. 

“ Ever anybody said your mother was like golden- 
rod, Paul ?” 

“ Hever,” said Bessy, laughing. “ It is a doubtful 
compliment.” 

“ Ain’t no compliment. It’s true.” 

“ Well, it’s enough for to-day. Come in at noon 
and get your dinner, and bring Consider.” 

“ All right, ma’am. I guess I’ve lost you time 
enough. I’d best fell a tree now. Turn about, 
work and words.” And he brought his axe down 
on the trunk at his feet, dexterously lopping branch 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


197 


after branch of the prostrate giant, while Paul and 
his mother walked away. 

Of late Philetus had been at his best. Mrs. 
Preston was trying to keep before him the ripe 
fruit of the famous knowledge-tree and to hide the 
immature product which is evil. But his darker 
hours were ever near at hand. 

June came, crowned with laurels, and with it a 
letter, brief as usual, to say that John Riverius 
would be with them in early July. He would bring 
the book, and Paul must write what else they needed. 


CHAPTER XY. 


A few days later, Miriam came, at Mrs. Preston’s 
request, to make a brief stay with her, and a shake- 
down was made for her and the small Ophelia in 
the sitting-room. Paul liked it less than did the two 
women. The charm of the child’s ways he cared 
for as little as boys do. So long as he built dams 
or corn-cob houses for her, Ophelia was content, 
but the least distraction of his attention excited 
her, and then he was never let alone. She liked 
her little court, and gently intrigued or manoeuvred 
to retain his fealty, gauging her likes very largely 
by the amount of attention she could obtain. Phi- 
letus never wearied of her, and was her willing 
slave. Her capacity for minute observation cer- 
tainly came from him, a mi he valued it the more 
for that reason, while of the mother’s peculiar 
charms of rosy fulness the dainty little person did 
not share as yet, nor had she happily any promise 
of being subject to the outbursts of anger to which 
the much-tried Miriam was at times given. 

The third day of their stay Paul induced his 
mother to go a half-mile down the river to the 
mountain and see the laurel which now covered 
it and had given it a name, and also there was 
the great lumber-slide to see. The two women, 
used to exercise afoot, climbed slowly up the trail, 


FAR IN T1IE FOREST. 


199 


sometimes relieving little Ophelia by a lift, some- 
times awaiting her slower progress and listening 
with smiles to her incessant prattle and constant 
requests to the much-tasked Paul to know the 
names of the flowers or to get her blackberries. 

In one of the deep clefts between the hill-top 
and the river a sturdy brook ran, whitening as it 
fell, intent to find the river-level. On either side 
vast granite rocks, tumbled from the cliff above, 
lay in gigantic masses in and along the stream. 
From the far top of the gorge, the laurel, creamy 
white and pink, a mass of unimaginable tints, filled 
every available space, and seen from beneath was 
like a cascade of bloom, parting at the rocks, re- 
uniting below, and glorious as colors that cloak the 
dying day. 

The little party stood below at the brook-side, 
all more or less feeling the effect of the immense 
mass of rich hues made up by the double bloom 
of the lesser and larger laurel. The day was quiet, 
and the noise of the riotous brook alone broke 
the stillness as it leaped to view here and there 
among the mass of flowers and came boldly out 
at last, white with gathered foam, to pause as if 
for reflection in a little pool before continuing its 
journey. Miriam said it was just really too beauti- 
ful, and was like a theatre, only it wasn’t so gay. 
As for Ophelia, she desired to be decorated with 
laurel and other flowers, and was soon as well 
garlanded as her namesake. She had a lively 
pleasure in arraying her small person. The next 
moment she discovered how the stamens of the 


200 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


larger laurel can be made to spring and scatter the 
pollen ; and this amused her until she found a bed 
of violets, when she got rid of her floral attire and 
sat down, smoothing her dress and inviting Paul to 
“fight violets,” which consists in hooking the 
crook-like stems of two of these flowers and then 
by a jerk beheading one of them, the sound sur- 
vivor being victorious for the time. Meanwhile the 
elder persons rested, chatted, or wandered about. 
Miriam’s reference to the theatre as her highest 
standard of comparison amused Mrs. Preston. 

“ I should think that noisy stream was actor and 
action enough for you.” 

“ It doesn’t have any trouble with learning its 
part. That did use to bother me when I trod the 
stage. I sometimes think I would like to go and 
do it again. That child’s got it in her, but, for all 
she’s called Ophelia, she couldn’t ever do that part 
the way I did. She doesn’t get real angry or real 
sorrowful. I do think sometimes she makes be- 
lieve. Do you think she could, Mrs. Preston?” 

“ I do not know. Children are dreadfully com- 
plicated. I think people who talk of the simplicity 

of childhood well, I do not mean very little 

children, but like your girl — must see very little. 
When one comes to manage them they do not seem 
very simple.” 

“ In that book of poetry you lent me, Mrs. Pres- 
ton, it says they’re nigher heaven than we are, and 
Christ he does say to let them come to him, just as 
if they would come to him of their own accord if 
we grown-up folks was to leave them alone.” 

/ 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 201 

“ That sounds like Philetus,” said Mrs. Preston, 
smiling. 

“Well, lie might have said it. When you live 
with a man has as much wisdom as Phil, you get 
so after a time you don’t rightly know what’s his 
and what’s your own. I do mind that he said it 
showed how hard it was for us grown-up folks, or 
else Christ wouldn’t have said, 4 Suffer,’ just as if it 
hurt us to let them go easy to him.” 

“ Philetus is an interesting critic,” said Bessy, 
knowing well what Riverius would have said in 
reply to poor Phil’s explanatory comments on Holy 
Writ. 

“ Yes, he is interesting,” returned Miriam. “ If 
he had had a right good education there is no say- 
ing what he couldn’t have done. But I don’t think 
he’d have made anything of an actor.” 

“ Hardly.” 

“ That child might, though I don’t consider the 
stage for her yet.” She spoke as if Ophelia were 
grown up and had but to choose. 

“ It is scarcely a life one would desire for a girl. 
I have heard you say so, Miriam.” 

“ You did; but, my gracious, Mrs. Preston, ain’t 
anything better than some man like Ance Vickers, 
and sitting alone one-half the time, and — and winter 
nights, and frying salt pork, and living on long 
sweetenin’ and bad flour? I tell you, I get right 
tired times. It ain’t like having Hamlet talk to 
you, fool as he w r as. I always did think he was a 
fool. I used to want to tell him so.” 

“ I w'onder you did not,” said Bessy, much de- 


202 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


lighted. “ However, as to the little one, there is 
time enough to think. Philetus is better, it seems 
to me.” 

“ Yes, things are more comfortable, thanks to 
you, and if Alice would go away, and Mr. Rive- 
rius too, we would get along, I do think. I don’t 
like to say it, but Phil just hates him. I can 
hardly speak a word about him ; and I do admire 
to see him. I never saw a man hadn’t been on the 
stage that held himself like him ; and he’s so gay, 
too. Phil’s a heap wiser, but for amusing he don’t 
compare.” 

“ Take my advice and never mention him at 
home. Your husband is not well in mind, and is, 
I dare say, unreasonable.” 

“ You’ve done him a heap of good, and I’ll try 
to take your advice ; but, bless me, I have a long 
tongue, and it’s right hard to keep not saying this 
and not saying that. Men are worse than children.” 

“Well, perhaps. Come along, Paul. Come, 
Ophelia.” 

In a few moments a strange roar was heard above 
them, and Miriam started. She was always inclined 
to be nervous. “ What’s that?” she said. 

“ Logs on the slide,” answered Paul. “ There, 
you can see it.” 

“ Tell me,” said the small inquirer at his side. 

“ Well, if there was only just a hill and the river 
down below, they could cut a smooth place and 
roll the logs down it. That’s a ‘ brow.’ But if 
there are deep places like this to cross over, then 
they make a slide.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


203 


“ Like in winter ?” said Ophelia. 

“ Yo. Yon come, and I’ll show you.” 

Ten minutes brought them out on the cleared 
rocky summit, some eight hundred feet above the 
Alleghany. There was Rollins, with Ance and 
others, and a quantity of logs brought thither in 
winter on bob-sleds and lying about ready to he 
sent down to the river, to be made into rafts. The 
spring had been dry, and the jam above had pre- 
vented the coming down of the rafts, so that now, 
taking advantage of a “ fresh,” all hands were busy 
getting down logs and building these huge unwieldy 
structures. Back of the hill-top and away from 
the river, on a table-land, there had been a noble 
grove of pines, which when cut down it was hard 
to convey to the stream. To do so with least labor, 
a lumber-slide had been built from the hill-top. 
It consisted of a floor of roughly-squared timber 
with hewn sides a foot high. As this primitive 
freight-road could he carried on supports across the 
several ravines between the table-land and the river, 
it saved slow and difficult winter ox-sledding, and 
enabled the logs, started at the top, to glide swiftly 
to the stream. The course was slightly curved, and 
the final drop from the bluff some twenty feet into 
deep water. 

As the women approached, Rollins and others 
spoke to them. Yickers nodded and said good- 
morning, and by and by edged over towards Paul, 
who had taken occasion to escape from the persua- 
sive Ophelia. Ance was in a good humor, and not 
more full of whiskey than common. If on him 


204 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


too frank Nature had set the mark of the brute in 
the ignoble nose and rounded ears, somewhere she 
had set, too, a more than brutish admiration of 
beauty and some faint sense of chivalry and fair 
play. His rare personal strength was his chief 
pride, and to know that until Eiverius had over- 
come him he had been the unquestioned superior 
in fight of any man on raft or in camp gratified 
him greatly. The combination of qualities he 
possessed was ruinous. Paul regarded him with 
boyish dignity. 

“ ’Ain’t seen you sence that scrimmage,” said 
Ance, grinning amicably. 

“No,” said Paul, prudently concerned to keep 
on good terms. 

“ Ef I hadn’t ’a’ bin awful full that time, he’d 
’a’ bin wusted. Jim Pearson ’lowed that last 
night,” — which was true, as it was rather un- 
pleasant at times to contradict Vickers. “ We’ll 
have another bout some day, and then we’ll see, 
maybe.” 

“Why, look here, Ance; you can’t lick that 
man. He’s got too much science.” 

“We’ll see,” said Ance. “Someway him and 
me’s got to get even ; and Ance Vickers ain’t the 
man to hide it, nuther. I was a-wantin’ to say to 
you thet I ain’t goin’ to keep you skeered about 
them hornets, and you’re a right plucky boy. 
’Tain’t many boys would have come and wanted 
me to lick ’em. Don’t you try no more tricks on 
me, and I’ll say it’s quits.” 

“ All right,” said Paul. He was, on the whole, 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


205 


well pleased, having a dreadful memory of that 
cracking limb and the wicked hairy red face. But 
he too had his boy chivalry, and added, “ I don’t 
mean I’m on your side. Mr. Riverius is my friend. 
I’d stand by him any time.” And he proudly felt 
that he had done so. “ Oh, they’re going to start 
a log!” And he ran away. 

A movable derrick was so rigged as to swing a 
huge shorn pine on to the head of the slide. Then 
the chains were loosed, the wood-hooks let go, and 
the great inert mass started slowly on its way. In 
a moment it gained impetus, and presently slid 
with gathering velocity down the slide with a sin- 
gular rasping sound which rose to a roar as it dis- 
appeared among the overgrowths. As it passed 
around the curve a little smoke showed itself, and 
then was heard the plunge into the river. 

“ Why does it make that smoke ?” said the little 
maid, who was mounted on Consider’s shoulder, 
acutely attentive. ^ 

“ It’s friction,” said Rollins, smiling. “ It would 
catch fire if we didn’t look out.” 

“They have turned a spring into the slide, 
mother,” said Paul, “ half-way down. That keeps 
it from burning.” 

“ Let Phely go down on that,” said the enter- 
prising young lady. 

The men laughed, and Rollins said, “ Ance went 
down on it once, seated on a shovel, for a bet ; but 
I guess he don’t hanker after it again.” 

Ance grinned: “Found it warm, like, I did. 
That ’ere shovel het up awful fast.” 


206 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


After seeing several logs go down, Mrs. Preston 
asked who had conceived the idea of making the 
slide. “ Riverius done it,” said Rollins. “ Said he 
had seen them in his country. It’s a great savin’ 
of cattle.” And after this they went home. 


CHAPTER XVI. 


The summer from May on had been dry. Rain 
had once fallen in June, but only once, and now 
the whole land was parched and thirsty. Mid- 
August came, and still no rain, and the trees were 
showing signs of wilting, while the brooks dried 
up and the wells gave out. The utmost alarm 
began to be felt as to fires, and no precautions were 
thought too great to provide against the disaster. 
Twice slight fires had arisen and twice had been in 
haste beaten out. As to the summer crops, they 
were ruined, and the parched earth, with wide 
cracks in field and pasture, confessed its longing 
for relief. 

As yet, despite his letter, Riverius did not come. 

One evening, with Paul, Bessy stood at the fence 
back of the house, contemplating her withered 
corn and shrivelled potato-vines. Suddenly a man 
she did not know said, “Evening, ma’am. Does 
one Riverius live about here ? I fetched his letters 
from Olean.” 

“ He is not here now,” said Bessy ; “ but I will 
see that he gets them when he comes.” 

“ All right.” And he gave her a bundle of papers 
and letters wrapped in greasy brown paper. 

“ Are there any for me ?” 

“ I don’t know. Best to look.” 

14 


208 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Go to the house, Paul,” she said, “ and give 
the man something to eat.” 

As they moved away, the letters fell out of the 
cover, and, gathering them up, Bessy leaned on the 
fence and turned them over to see if there were one 
for herself. “ Ah!” she said, surprised. Usually 
heretofore all his letters had been directed to Herr 
Johann Biverius. How all were addressed “ To 
the Baron Johann Biverius,” etc. 

“ That is it,” she said, with quick perception. 
“ His brother must have died while he was abroad, 
and now he is Baron Biverius.” Bid this widen 
the space between them ? She knew well enough 
how little a title like that meant in many lands, 
and how much it meant in some. With all her 
personal pride, she did not untruthfully estimate her 
friendless place in existence, her poverty, her rough 
wood-life, and the effects against which she strug- 
gled hard for both Paul and herself. She had but 
a broken life and a burdened one to give. Bid he 
want it at all ? Yes, it might be so. Her womanly 
perceptions were delicately apprehensive. Had this 
change in his condition altered him ? There might 
be reasons for that not altogether base, and her 
early days and strong good sense had given her 
power to feel and know that circumstances might 
make it difficult for him to do as he might desire. 
Trying to reverse their respective situations, she 
saw the matter still more charitably, even if with 
increasing pain. And suppose it lay in her power 
to win him, — a gentle task, from which all her pride 
of character shrunk, — would she do it ? “ I could 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


209 


make him happy,” she said, aloud. “ I could do 
it. I would be good for him, too,” she said, ap- 
pealing to her reason. Then she rested her arms 
on the top rail of the snake fence and leaned upon 
them silent. “ Will it ever be ?” she murmured. 

“ Guten Abend, Frau Preston,” said a familiar 
voice, and she turned with a start, blushing an 
honest red despite herself. 

“ I came from Smethport,” he added. “ How 
are you ?” 

“ Very well, and most glad to see you.” 

“ I have been long away, — too long ; but I had 
much business.” 

“ Come in and have some tea.” 

“ Gladly. How you are all dried up ! Ho rain, 
I hear, and much dread of fires. You should cut 
that long grass. It is gone worthless, and is too 
near the house. It would burn like hay. And how 
is my friend Paul ?” He was in gay good humor. 

“Here are your letters, baron,” she said, de- 
murely. 

“ Ach, you know that ! Well, I should have told 
you. My brother died, and I am the head of the 
house. I wished it never; hut it has come.” 

“ And now I suppose you will go home?” 

“ I do not know. Yes, some time. I am very 
happy here. I do not love place and station and 
the harder forms of our social life. It sets cruel 
limits at times on one’s will, and even on one’s just 
desires.” 

“Why?” she asked, with absolute appearance 
of innocence. 


210 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I do not mean that it does imperatively fetter a 
man ; that depends ; but it may make life difficult. 
That is all.” 

“ I suppose so,” said Bessy. “ I remember your 
speaking of this once.” She was amazed at her 
own audacity. 

“ And you refused to help me.” 

“I did. There are things no man should ask 
to have decided for him.” 

u You are right. You are always right.” 

And so they went in, and Riverius was noisily 
made welcome by Paul, and noted that the laurels 
were finished and other flowers added. After his 
supper he asked leave to smoke, as usual, and 
apologized for reading his letters. JSTow and then 
he looked up and said a word or two. “ My vines 
are doing well. We have one of the best vineyards 
in Saxony. I should like to show you the hills from 
the garden. Ach ! and we have had trouble with 
the government wood-inspectors. I wonder how 
the Herr Inspector would like it here. And how 
is the quaint Philetus ?” 

She felt that for the first time he had begun to 
let her freely into his life. She went on sewing 
calmly, a flood of joy in all her being. 

“ Philetus is, or was, better. He drinks less ; 
but I do think that he is not quite right in his 
mind.” 

“ In his mind ?” 

“Yes. He has what he calls visions; and, to 
speak frankly, he has come to regard you with an 
utterly unreasonable hatred.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


211 


“I am sorry, but it does not matter much. I 
mean to offer him a place to oversee some wood- 
work at my coal-mines in Pennsylvania. It is 
really on account of his wife and child, and be- 
cause — well ” 

“Well, because what?” 

“ Oh, only that I thought you would like it.” 

“ I should,” she said. “ I should like it very 
much. Whether he will or not is hard to say. It 
does not appear to me a very available plan. At 
times he seems to me quite out of his head ; and 
then his blindness. Here he is at home in the 
woods ; but in a strange place among new people 
— it will hardly answer.” 

“ I have thought of all that,” he returned. “ Of 
course you understand that I shall insist upon hav- 
ing Consider also. It would never do to break up 
that queer partnership.” 

“But if the thing fails, — if poor old Philetus 
prove unable to do the work you will expect, — 
what then ?” 

“What then? Oh, I should find some trifling 
task for him and regard him as a pensioner. The 
thing is to get him away from that drunken brute 
Ance. My plan may fail, but I mean to give them 
a chance. Change may help him, and with Con- 
sider to aid him I fancy that he will be quite able 
to do what little I shall want. At all events, we 
will try.” 

“ We,” thought Bessy. 

“Besides,” he added, gayly, “ I have to begin to 
pay my debts to you. I am still reasonably honest. 

14 * 


212 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Oh, I am in earnest,” he added, watching her face. 
“ It is serious.” 

“ That is forbidden ground,” said Bessy. “ Par- 
don me, but it seems to me ignoble to be unable to 
accept a benefit without feeling it constantly as a 
debt; and — and do you think that in my solitary 
life your constant kindness, your thoughtful friend- 
liness, have been nothing?” 

“ That is more debt,” he said, laughing. 

“ Let us drop the subject. Your scheme for 
Philetus seems to me kind. It may answer, al- 
though, as I said, I have my fears. Whether or 
not he will accept is, as I suspect, rather doubtful. 
He is working here still ; and perhaps if you could 
manage to see Miriam first it might be the better 
way.” She hesitated to advise it, but then it would 
be only for this once. 

“ I will go to-morrow. I have the book for you. 
It is only a record of scientific travel in South 
America.” Then he rose. “It is early, but I 
am tired.” And he looked around him. “ How 
pleasant to be here again !” 

“ You must miss the vineyards.” 

“ Ilimmel ! I wish they were under the sea, and 
the old castle and all. Gute Yacht.” 

Bessy sat still and worked on, smiling a little to 
herself at times, and happier than she had been 
for many a day. 

It is sometimes fortunate when love is introduced 
by friendship. If love be blind, friendship, the 
true friendship of large natures, is not, and may 
be the firmest basis in matured persons for that 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


213 


relation which is supposed to make keenness of 
mental vision impossible. Soon or late the best love 
must include a friendship as honest and respectful. 
The friendship of man and woman has been much 
discussed, and as much doubted, nor is it in its 
fulness with the young a very frequently possible 
relation ; yet for those past their first youth it has 
or may have qualities which give it values far be- 
yond a like tie between two of one sex. The 
woman friend must always feel some of the limita- 
tions which are imposed by her sex and from which 
she can never wholly free herself ; hut for the man 
her friend the bond has availabilities which no such 
relation to one of his own sex can give. There goes 
with it a possibility of confessing the delicacies of 
sentiment which he never inclines to lay open to his 
fellow-man. There are things he may wish to say 
at which the man may smile, hut which to the 
woman are serious, — things as to which the friendly 
masculine is cool or which he regards but lightly. 
The men whose characters include certain feminine 
characteristics by no means unworthy of the high- 
est male creations are rare, but give us, when they 
do exist, the noblest types of capacity for the fullest 
friendship. The man who has no woman friend is 
unfortunate, and lacks a part of that breadth of 
relation to his kind which liberal-minded men in- 
stinctively crave. 

Very early in their acquaintance Riverius had 
once said to Bessy carelessly that some kind of 
love-ties are commonplace possibilities, but that 
capacity for friendship in its loftier range is the 


214 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


rarer gift, and that no one makes a good friend to 
another who is not a true friend to himself. She 
had smiled, only half understanding him. Now 
she understood better. She had the gift, rare to 
passionate natures, of being able to stand aloof 
from her own feelings and to use her reason as she 
might have done that of a friend, and at present 
through her own self-knowledge she comprehended 
in a measure the man to whom she felt that she 
had given her unasked love. It was natural to 
Bessy Preston to feel that the nobleness of giving 
implied obligation to give. When this man fell at 
her door, and she had recalled him to life, she had 
pledged herself to an interest in what she had 
given. It is easier to give anew when one has once 
given than to give at first. As time went by, Rive- 
rius stood all the tests which an awkward situation 
and unusual conditions applied before the vision of 
a woman clear-sighted and thoughtfully on guard. 
His reticence as to himself would have annoyed 
some women. It pleased her. His indisposition 
to talk of himself she respected. He leaped no 
bounds abruptly, yet somehow each month she 
knew him better, and came at last to understand 
him as women do at times come to understand men. 
Ilis faults she saw, therefore, — his too sure trust 
in himself, and the pride which made it hard for 
him to receive with gracious acceptance and easy 
for him to give generously. His intellectual con- 
tempt of the vague or pretentious she disliked, as 
needless, but the role of his better qualities her 
head had taught her heart, and thus, clear of brain 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


215 


and lovingly generous, she gave him, slowly, re- 
spect, admiration, friendship, and at last knew of 
a sudden that she had been too prodigal and had 
given her love. At first this had made her un- 
happy, but of late she was anything hut this. She 
felt, however, a growing need for self-control. 
She mistrusted the stormy passion of which she 
knew herself to be capable, and acknowledged 
with a wild joy that she was competent to love 
with such energy and intensity as once would have 
seemed to her impossible. Many such thoughts 
haunted her that night. At last she recalled some 
things which made her resolute that Paul should 
go with Riverius to Richmond’s cabin. Accord- 
ingly, she asked the lad on the following morning 
to take to Miriam a small basket with some trifles 
which she had commissioned the German to buy 
for her. 

While Paul filled his basket in the house, she 
stood outside at the door with Riverius. Chatting 
gayly, she trimmed the climbing roses and clipped 
off the dead leaves. Her graciousness of move- 
ment was seen to full advantage. Fuller health 
had given her breadth and color, and the riper 
curves of neck and chest suggested vigorous youth. 
There was, as he saw her, a dignified calmness in 
all her simplest acts which was typical of the 
woman’s character. Riverius looked at her gravely, 
hut with a keen sense of the mysterious changes 
which a little time had wrought. The traditions 
and prejudices of a life were crumbling in his joy- 
fully-troubled soul, and he knew it. As she lifted 


216 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


both hands to seize a branch, the noble vase-like 
curves of chest and bust startled him, and the faint 
vertigo of intoxicated senses overcame him for a 
moment. The feeling of weakness — and he dis- 
liked all such indications of want of self-control — 
did nevertheless please him. He laughed aloud; 
and he had the rare and gentle art of laughing well. 

“ What amuses you ?” she said, without turning 
her head. 

“ Oh, nothing.” 

“ Then you are delightfully easy to amuse. I 
used to wonder that you laughed so little; but I 
really think that you are improving, — absolutely 
improving.” 

“ There is room in many ways.” She made no 
answer. “ What do you think ?” he added. “ Am 
I very naughty ?” 

“ Well, they say so hereabouts.” 

“ Oh, they say so. Do you suppose I care, un- 
less ” 

“ But you should. That is one of your faults. 
There, you wanted to know. How these thorns 
prickle !” 

“ You mean that I do not enough consider the 
opinions of men. Was that it?” 

u No, you do not, if they are socially beneath 
you. As to how it is with others, your equals, I 
do not know. I have no chance of knowing.” 

“ And yet you are my equal.” 

“ Am I? You are very good. I always thought 
I was your superior.” And she smiled over her 
shoulder. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


217 


“You are,” he said, quietly. 

“ And how ? That is interesting.” 

“ I will tell you. I am more unreserved than 
you. I do not at all mind telling you.” 

“Well?” Her heart beat joyous music in her 
breast. She liked the light talk and pretty little 
play at confessions, “ the marge of perils sweet.” 

“You are unprejudiced, and I am full of preju- 
dices. You are frank and unsuspicious.” 

“ Ah !” she murmured. 

“ I am ” 

“ Pardon me, I did not ask for a comparative 
statement of vices and virtues.” 

“ But, being penitent, as you see, I am disposed 
to confess.” 

“ I do not like confessions.” 

“ Ho.” 

“ But I can stand any amount of abuse.” 

“ And that I am incapable of.” 

“ Yes, I always thought your character rather 
defective. If you had been a reasonably consti- 
tuted man, you would not have watched me for 
five minutes trying to seize this branch, when with 
the least exertion ” 

“ And you want it badly ?” 

“ Dreadfully.” 

“ What will you give to have it ?” The way, the 
tones, the playfulness, were all unlike the man. 

“ I do not want it,” she said. “ It is the part 
of wisdom to abandon vain efforts.” 

“ Ach! not whenever I saw Mrs. Preston. You 
should have been a man.” 


218 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I wish I were !” 

a Why V > 

“ I would get that branch.” 

“ I thought you had given it up.” 

“ Please to get it.” 

“If you will give me the rose I see on the 
tip.” 

“ I will give you this bud.” 

“ No, I want the rose.” 

“ But why ?” 

“ A bud is incomplete.” 

A slight womanly mutiny arose in her mind. 
“ You cannot have it,” she said. “ The bud or 
nothing.” 

“ Then nothing,’ he returned, and, reaching up, 
drew down the branch. 

“ Thank you,” she said, faintly. 

He returned, gravely, “ Perhaps you repent. I 
would wish that you do repent.” 

“I have not been wicked enough. — Ah, Paul, 
have you all the things ?” 

He said he was sure, and, with Iliverius, who 
was suddenly serious and silent, walked across the 
clearing. They were a hundred yards away, and 
she watched them, — shall we say him ? “ Ah,” 

she cried. “ I should be ashamed of myself! I 
have been, I have been — silly ? But how pleasant 
it was!” Then she looked again. They were in 
the woods. He seemed to her to be going away, 
away from her, and a flood of passionate blood 
surged hotly to her temples and overcame her. 
“ Paul !” she cried, “ Paul !” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


219 


He came back in haste, while Riverius stayed 
leaning against a tree-trunk, deep in thought. 

“ She loves me. Why did she play with me ? 
Surely she knew.” 

In a moment or two Paul returned. “ I don’t 
see why mother forgets so lately. She wanted to 
send some flowers to Miriam Richmond, and she 
said I was to give you this one. I don’t see what 
a man wants a rose for.” 

Riverius took the rose. It was full-blown. He 
turned and looked back, a morning dawn of joy 
in his face. Bessy was gone. She was seated in 
the painted room. “ How could I do it ?” she said. 
Meanwhile, Riverius strode along in silence. He 
had not counted on this abrupt surrender, but he 
did not undervalue the sacrifice it must have cost 
her pride. He knew that only of late had he been 
able to set aside the doubts and difficulties made for 
him by education and traditions, and he could not 
know how long it was since Bessy had learned with 
a certain dread that her heart had been given in 
advance. But now the benediction of a frank and 
noble love was on him. He smiled scornfully, re- 
membering the barriers he had set in his own way. 
The sense of deep humility which goes with worthy 
loving came over him, and he walked on reflecting 
what now life ought to be. At last Paul’s talk, 
which usually he liked, annoyed him, and he said, 
“ Could you go to my wood-camp and ask James 
to come over to-night?” 

“All right,” said the boy; “but you will have 
to carry the basket and these roses.” 


220 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ I will see that they get there safe. Tell your 
mother 1 sent you to camp. I shall be at home by 
supper-time.” 

Alone and happy in the uninterrupted opportu- 
nity to think, Riverius went on, and an hour later 
entered Richmond’s cabin. It is quite certain that 
happiness agrees with some people, and that to 
some misfortune is surely productive of moral in- 
digestion. Riverius was not a man easily swayed 
by external circumstance, good or bad. But what 
had overcome him now was a novel experience in 
his life, and affected him as great physical influ- 
ences affect the material world, causing dislocations 
and rearrangements, shattering, dissolving, dis- 
placing, seeming to confuse. By and by in either 
case there come tranquillity, and permanent or 
temporary results according to the nature of the 
thing disturbed. Just now his answered love was 
to Riverius like sudden sunshine to a waiting world 
of ready spring-time things. Bessy had sped him 
on an errand of mercy. It should be done with 
flavor of her liberal graciousness. He liked the 
idea, and played with it pleasantly. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


As Riverius drew near the cabin, Mrs. Richmond 
came to the door. He was struck with her look of 
worry, and, as always, with the large-limbed robust- 
ness of the woman, and wondered a moment how 
she and the rugged blind man could have been 
the parents of the finely-made, quick-witted child 
who appeared of a sudden beside her. 

“ When did you come, Mr. Riverius ?” said 
Miriam. 

“ Last night.” 

“ Oh ! that is why Philetus didn’t happen to tell 
me.” 

“ He does not know of my return. I have not 
seen him.” 

Turning, Miriam glanced hastily at the small 
noisy Yankee clock on the wall. It was hut a little 
after nine. Ho one — certainly not Philetus — was 
likely to appear before noon. She might feel at 
ease. 

Said Ophelia, promptly, “ You got something in 
that basket for Phely. What you got in that basket 
for Phely ? Give me some roses.” 

“ The roses are for your mother, from Mrs. 
Preston. There is a doll for you, and a little book.” 
Here he produced these articles, to which for the 
time Ophelia paid not the least attention. 

“ What else you got there ?” When she found 


222 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


there were no other matters of possible interest, she 
sat down and submitted the new doll to an accurate 
anatomical study. 

“She has one leg longer than the other. What 
color are her eyes, Mr. Riverius ?” 

The baron was much amused. “ She must have 
some French blood,” he said. “ Let her go away 
for a little ; or shall we walk outside ? I want to 
talk to you of some business matters best to be 
discussed alone.” The fair Ophelia understood at 
once that she was to be separated for a time from 
her audience. 

“ Phely quite comf ’able,” she said. “ Phely 
wants to stay inside.” 

“ Take the doll and the book and go down to 
your baby-house and stay until I call you,” said 
Miriam. “ Until I call you. Do you hear, 
Ophelia?” 

The young person searched a moment Mrs. 
Richmond’s troubled face, and concluded to obey, 
being well aware that in certain of her mother’s 
moods of late the large hands had been apt to be 
unpleasant. “ Phely will pound the doll with a 
stone if she don’t say her lessons,” returned the 
maid, with a defiant air. 

“ Out with you ! You just try any such naughty 
tricks ! And don’t you come till I call.” 

The mutinous, pretty little creature went down 
the slope, and at the far corner of the clearing 
seated herself by a miniature cabin, the gift of 
Consider Kinsman. Here, under the shade of a 
great maple, she was soon busy presenting to the 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


223 


new doll a headless sister and a collection of snail- 
shells, stones, broken china, and corn-cobs. Mean- 
while, Mrs. Richmond dusted with her apron a 
chair for her guest, and then sat down to talk with 
him. 

“ I have to be sharp with her sometimes, she’s 
that persistent ; and as to talking before her about 
anything you don’t want known to anybody else, 
you might just as well tell it yourself.” 

“ I have nothing very serious to say ; but, on the 
whole, I did think it well to be alone with you. 
Really it mattered little.” 

“ She’ll stay now till I call her. What’s the 
matter? Anything wrong?” Poor Miriam was 
in such a hopeless state of mind that any good news 
seemed to her improbable. 

“ I came over here to see you because I want you 
and Philetus to go and live on some lands of mine 
in the coal-country near Pottsville.” 

“ But ” 

“ Wait a little, until I am through. I shall expect 
your husband to look after my lumber interests, 
and before long to attend to other duties connected 
with a mine I am opening. He will have a house, 
and he paid, I should say, about five times his 
present wages. Then there is a school quite near, 
and Pottsville not far away, and neighbors close 
by.” 

“ Mr. Riverius !” 

“ One moment. I know that Philetus is not 
well. I know that to get him away from Ance 
Vickers is his only chance ; and it seemed — well, 

15 


224 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


it seemed best to Mrs. Preston that I saw yon first. 
If I were to talk to Philetus he would not under- 
stand me. At least that might be the case. This 
is all I have to say.” 

To his surprise, she made no reply, but sat look- 
ing out of the open door, some unusual twitching 
movements about the chin, her eyes filling too fast 
for natural drainage. Then came an outburst of 
sobbing, her face in her apron, the large, bare white 
arms shaking with the convulsive motions of the 
head her hands sustained. 

“ I ain’t — used — to kindness — not — from men. 
I thank — thank you. Do — don’t — think I don’t 
thank you.” 

The German looked aside out into the sunshine. 
There was something uncomfortable about his 
throat. “ Ach, Himrnel !” he said, aloud. “ Don’t 
cry. What is it to make a fuss for ?” 

By this time Miriam had rubbed her face red 
and searched out the moisture in the corners of 
her eyes and set her features in order. 

“ You must excuse me, sir. I haven’t cried, not 
that way, for many a day. There is crying that 
blesses, and crying that curses, and — and ” 

“ Please don’t begin again,” said Riverius, with 
all of a man’s utter helplessness before a tearful 
face. 

“ I don’t see why you want to do it. He — well, 
there’s no use in hiding it, he hates you. I don’t 
want to have you making him this offer and you 
not know that.” 

“ But I do know it.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


225 


“ Then you ain’t like other men, that’s all I’ve 
got to say.” 

The pride that made the husband’s dislike seem 
to him but a trifle Miriam could not have under- 
stood, nor altogether Riverius’s desire to help the 
weak who are in trouble through no wrong of their 
own doing, nor also his other motives. As to the 
German himself, it was but a small matter, and he 
was getting more thanks and more affluence of 
admiration than he relished. 

“ Mrs. Preston thought I had best see you about 
it.” 

“ Oh !” exclaimed Miriam, smiling a little. 
“ Guess I’ll thank Mrs. Preston when I see her. 
You’re a good man, Mr. Riverius, and you just 
hate to be told it.” 

“ Oh, don’t !” said Riverius. 

“ It’s no use. You’ve got to take it. When you 
shake an apple-tree and the pippins come a-tumbling 
down on your head you ’ain’t any reason to com- 
plain. The quality of your mercy ain’t strained, or 
it ain’t strained through a fine sieve. I ” 

The German held up a hand of appeal, shaking 
his head the while. 

“ Keep the rest for Mrs. Preston. I must go. 
When you have seen Philetus, if he is at all reason- 
able, we can talk it over as to details. Oh! and 
tell him I will take Consider also. I forgot that. 
It is essential. Good-by.” And he put out his 
hand. She had a wish to kiss it. IIow could she 
show the gratitude with which her soul was full ? 
Philetus would not like that. She dropped the 


226 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


hand, stood before him, tall, shapely, pure white 
and red, with the look of woman strength in hip 
and chest, like some largely-modelled caryatid. 

“ God bless you !” she said. “ God thank you ! 
I cannot; I know, I know. God bless you both !” 

He only smiled, lifted his cap courteously as to 
a lady of his own rank, and, turning, walked down 
the hill and was soon lost to her view in the trees 
as she stood and watched him. Then she too 
turned and went into the house and fell on her 
knees and prayed God with thankfulness as she 
had been unable to do for many a day. When she 
rose, more composed, the little maid was still out 
of her thoughts. By and by the mother glanced 
through a window, and saw her going to and fro, 
busy in a little world of her own creation. Miriam 
took a jacket of Phil’s, and, sitting down, began to 
sew, and also, thus aided, to think, as women will 
at their work. Would Philetus accept? Oh, he 
must. And why was he so strange about Piverius 
and so careless about Ance ? She profoundly ad- 
mired the manly German gentleman, but she had 
always been a woman above reproach, and of late 
had been very careful never even to mention his 
name; yet the visions continued, and her husband 
had been wandering in speech at times, talking as 
if in his blindness the German had been hiding 
near the cabin. What did it all mean ? She could 
not understand it. But now she must speak out, 
and make Philetus comprehend that the man was 
his friend and had never been other than just. She 
rose to call the child. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 227 

At this moment a shadow fell through the door- 
way. She leaped to her feet as Anson Vickers 
entered. “ What do you want ?” she cried, fiercely. 
“I told you yesterday I would tell Phil if you 
came again. Begone, I say ! Go !” 

“ I won’t hurt you,” he said. “ Lord, hut you’re 
a beauty ! Come, let’s talk a little. You be quiet, 
now, and I won’t say nuthin’ ’bout that ther’ Ry- 
verus. Guess ef Phil knowed how long he stayed 
here to-day, he’d wish he’d a pair of eyes to lay 
along a rifle-sight. He’s a nice-lookin’ man, that 
German.” 

If he meant to scare her he was sadly astray. 
A fury of rage, of ungovernable anger, arose within 
her. Gratitude, respect, sense of repeated insult, 
lent it fuel. 

“ You spy ! you devil !” she cried ; “ you fiery 
beast, with your lying whiskey-fed tongue !” She 
turned aside with a swift motion, caught Phil’s 
rifle, which she knew well how to use, cocked it, 
and, covering the amazed and now furious man, 
“ Out, out, dog !” she screamed, “ or I will kill 
you !” 

Ance was courageous and unpractised in fear. 
A certain look of fascination lit up his bleared 
eyes and to the woman’s instinctive appreciations 
coarsely spoke of horrible peril. She had never 
realized it as now. It disturbed her visibly. In 
an instant, stooping quickly to avoid the shot, he 
rose, seizing her hand and tearing it from the trig- 
ger. As he fell back, the rifle in his grasp, she 
caught at the barrel, and struggled while he strove 

15 * 


228 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


to wrench the weapon from her. She cried aloud 
for help, and only the distant child, hearing faintly, 
listened undisturbed and then went on with her 
play. The powerful woman was no easy prey. 
At last, v cursing, he tore the weapon from her 
hands, which slid in wild vain effort along the 
smooth barrel. The trigger caught on some part 
of Vickers’s coat. There was a sudden explosion, 
a smoke, silence, a staggering reeling thing before 
his eyes, a heavy fall, and Ance recoiled, seeing on 
the floor her tall, large form, the face whitening, 
a quick red stream leaping in jets from the neck 
and spraying the nail-dented boards of the floor. 
His eyes opened wide, his jaw fell. Then of a sud- 
den he dropped the weapon, knelt, tore oft* her 
white apron, and tried to stanch the merciless flow 
which soaked it. It was vain. The hall had gone 
upwards through the brain, cutting a large artery 
in the neck. He ceased, stood up, and knew that 
it was useless. As he looked, her lips stirred. 
Her round white arms twitched. Something like 
a strange smile convulsed her face, and all was still 
in the cabin except the click, cluck of the wooden 
clock on the wall. Of a sudden he became afraid. 
Before that he had been simply shocked. The 
change from the noble, amply-modelled woman, all 
life and rage, who had aroused his worst passions, 
to the white inert mass on the floor, had at first for 
him the amazement of a miracle. But now he was 
afraid. He backed slowly to the door, then, still 
watching her, stooped to pluck his straw hat from 
the floor, glanced around, saw no one, and suddenly 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


229 


ran, like a beast pursued, down the hill and into the 
woods. After a half-hour he sat down, exhausted, 
by a brook, and for the first time became capable of 
thought after his kind. Before this he may be said 
to have merely felt the emotions of astonishment 
and sorrow, and at last of pure terror. At length 
he had come to a sense of personal danger. Look- 
ing about him, he became suddenly aware that he 
had still in his left hand Miriam’s apron red with 
blood. He placed the rolled garment in the brook, 
covering it with a large stone which he lifted from 
the bed of .the stream. Then he washed his hands 
and coat with care, and, standing up, followed with 
his eyes the faint stains in the slow current until 
they were lost to view. After this he turned and 
walked slowly until he came to his lonely cabin 
on the far slope of Laurel Mountain. He entered 
it, shut the door, and sat down on a rough settle. 
His lack of imagination spared him some forms of 
mental distress. The refinements of self-torture 
he escaped. The extremity of pure fear at times 
returned, and he groaned aloud, but of the child 
and helpless blind Philetus he thought but vaguely. 
He had, however, a shameful sense of having hurt 
a woman, and yet knew that as far as intention was 
concerned he would as lief have killed himself. Of 
that self as a creator of the causes which led to her 
death he also failed to take cognizance. Withal 
there was a dreadful confusion about it in his brain, 
long weakened by drink, so that at times it was all 
dull and indistinct to him. Simple, brutal, with 
only a redeeming love of fair play, he had never 


230 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


been known to use a knife or to take a revenge save 
in the way of a direct personal contest, and, al- 
though feared for his great strength and courage, 
was on the whole liked as a rough, generous man 
who used no base advantages. He took a long 
drink of whiskey and walked about restlessly. It 
was clear even to his slow mind that flight was vain 
and likely to result in capture, and what would come 
after he also understood. Moreover, to fly was to 
flx suspicion; and how now could any one think 
of him as guilty ? He knew that he must as soon 
as possible face his fellows, and again and again said 
to himself that it was just an accident. But then 
what right had he to be there ? He was not so stupid 
as not to know what sinful temptation took him to 
his comrade’s cabin. Except the habitual pride in 
his reputation for fair play, which worked for good, 
he had few possibilities of gentle development save 
the one which might have come to him from the love 
of a woman. That she had been in an evil sense 
unattainable had set her away from him for all pos- 
sible kindly helpfulness in life. Take, in the arith- 
metic of being, what we can get from w T hat we 
want, and the remainder is often that despair which 
arrests the honest and sets the sensual fool staler- 
ing along the road to crime. 

The coarse animal, now a little revived by drink, 
had a wild impulse to go back and see the thing he 
had loved or craved and killed. But dread for 
himself, the instinct of self-preservation, was dom- 
inant, and increasingly so as the hours went by. 
Remorse, the torture of the imaginative, he had 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


231 


not, only fear, sense of shame, of loss, of stupid 
regret. He drank again, and, going out, took the 
road to Rollins’s camp, where two or three men 
were arranging sleds and cabin for the winter tree- 
falling. It was now afternoon, and getting towards 
dusk. As the shadows lengthened, he began to 
desire company of man, and moved along more 
rapidly. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


On his homeward way, Paul wandered somewhat 
in search of squirrels, and about noon, beginning 
to feel hungry, struck across the woods for home 
and dinner. On his way he came upon Philetus 
at his work and about to leave for Mrs. Preston’s 
on a like errand. 

“ Halloo, Phil,” said the boy. “ I’ve got eight 
squirrels. Here’s four for Myry.” And he laid 
them by the old man’s coat. 

“ Whar have you bin ?” said Philetus. 

“Well, I started out with Mr. Riverius to go 
over to your house with a lot of things he brought 
mother for your folks, and ” 

“ Whar’s he gone now ?” returned the woodman, 
abruptly, turning his large useless eyes on Paul. 

“ Oh, he sent me over to camp and took the 
things himself.” 

“ And he’s went thar alone ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“Consider! Whar’s Consider? Do you see 
him? Ef you see Consider, tell him I’ve gone 
home. He’ll foller me ef you tell him.” 

“ I don’t see him.” 

“ Set me in the ox-road, Paul. I’m that dazed 
to-day.” 

Paul took his hand and led him a rod to left, 
a little puzzled, because, as a rule, Philetus was 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


233 


strangely competent to find his way. “You’ve 
left your hat and coat and the squirrels,” said Paul. 
“ I’ll get them for you.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Philetus. 

When Paul came back, the man had gone. The 
boy saw his broad shoulders at a distance, and 
called after him, but got no response. He stood 
in astonishment. “ Well, that is queer,” he ex- 
claimed. “ I’ll take them home.” And, so say- 
ing, he slung the garment on his arm, put the hat 
on top of his own, and, shouldering the wood- 
man’s axe and his own rifle, went away wondering. 

“ Philetus has gone home and left his things, 
mother,” he said as he entered the cabin. “I don’t 
know what’s wrong with him. He’s getting to 
be very queer.” Then he told how Riverius had 
sent him (Paul) to the camp. “ He didn’t want to 
talk, mother. Mostly he likes it. I think he is as 
queer as Philetus.” 

“ But why did you not go with him, as I told 
you ?” 

“ How could I ? He said it was important to get 
word to James; and of course I had to go. It 
didn’t make any matter.” 

“Yes, it did.” She seemed to him unreasonable, 
and she was really troubled in mind. “ And Phi- 
letus has gone home ?” 

“ Yes; and I was to send Consider after him.” 

“ Send him at once. Tell him to hurry. He is at 
the well. There, go. Do you hear me ? Do as I 
tell you, at once.” Paul was standing before her, 
thinking all his little world was becoming strange. 


234 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


However, he did her errand, which she hastened 
by a few words to Consider. She wrote them large 
on the small slate he carried, urging him to hurry 
and that Philetus was ill. Far ahead of him the 
blind woodman was going swiftly along the road. 
His unbridled imaginations were away with him 
on a path of vague fears. The wolves of anger, 
jealousy, insane suspicion, pursued his blind yet 
rapid steps. How and then he paused and touched 
tree or stump or listened to hear the sound of a 
brook. He knew the way. Almost his feet knew 
it; but when in his wild eagerness he ran and 
struck against a tree, he hesitated, cursing his lost 
sight. At last, breathless, he came out on his 
clearing. Oh but to see ! He called, “ Myry, 
Myry!” Then the child ran from her play-house 
and took his hand. 

“ Where’s mother, Phely ?” he said. 

“ Mother and Mr. Eiverius they wanted to talk 
secrets. Phely had to go away.” 

“ How long was he there ?” 

“ Phely don’t know. Oh, very long.” 

“ Come,” he said, and, as she moved too slowly, 
he carried her, and, not listening to her incessant 
prattle, set her down at the door. She ran in be- 
fore him. 

“ Myry !” he cried, and followed the little one. 
“ What’s the matter? Somethin’s wrong:.” 

“ Mother’s lying down on the floor, and, oh, she’s 
all red — oh, pretty red — all over ! Who tore your 
clothes, mother ? Here ! here !” she cried, pulling 
at his hand. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


23b 

He stooped and touched the still form on the 
floor, then, in agonized haste, felt face and breast, 
rose, swayed, and at last fell again on his knees 
beside her and caught up the poor dead limp form 
he had loved, and kissed it over and over. “ Oh, 
Christ,” he said, 44 she is dead ! My Myry is dead ! 
I cannot see. She cannot see.” He lifted her large 
figure and laid it on the bed, tenderly set out the 
strong limbs, and closed the eyes, trembling as he 
touched them. Meanwhile, the child was quiet 
and awed. At last, as he stood by the bed, staring 
visionless at the form below him, the child said, 
“ You all red too, on the hands.” 

44 Who’s that ?” he cried. It was Consider. 

“It’s me, Phil. It’s Consider,” said the deaf 
man, announcing himself with a touch. 4 4 What ! 
Myry! Why, she ain’t dead! Surely! She’s 
shot ! Who done that ? Your rifle’s on the floor.” 
He leaned over her, fearing to touch her, and keep- 
ing his hands behind him. 44 It’s awful, Phil. It’s 
in the neck. She’s dead, sure enough. Who done 
it?” 

44 Who’s been here, Phely ?” 

44 Mr. Riverius, he’s been,” said the child. 

44 He’s the man,” said Philetus. 44 1 knowed it 
was a-comin’. I knowed somethin’ was a-comin’.” 
He seized the deaf man’s sleeve and pointed to the 
door. “Rollins,” he said, distinctly, 44 and the 
rest,” and opened and shut his fingers to show that 
he wanted all the men to come back with him. 
Then he took the child in his lap, and waited, 
sitting silent before her many questions. 


236 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Meanwhile, Consider ran down the slope and 
into the woods. In an hour, as he came near to 
Rollins’s camp, he met Ance Vickers. 

“ What’s up ?” said Ance, boldly, seizing his 
sleeve. The deaf man, as if hearing him, an- 
swered, “ Myry Richmond’s killed. Phil he says 
Riverius done it.” Ance started. “ Little Phely 
she says he were thar. I don’t take it as that Ger- 
man done it; I don’t. He ain’t that sort.” 

For a moment Ance stood still, while Consider 
went by to the camp in hot haste. A sense of re- 
lief at suspicion being directed away from him was 
Vickers’s first feeling. He would have time to 
think, and would be easier about meeting the men. 
Then, too, a grim idea came into his mind that at 
last his enemy would be humbled. His resent- 
ment was somehow intensified by his own mishap, 
and he did not readily forgive a defeat. That it all 
might mean something more grave to Riverius he 
did not stay to consider. His mental horizons were 
limited. The haughty gentleman would suffer. 
Ance liked that, and just now that was all. He 
went on into camp, where all was wild confusion. 
Mrs. Rollins, who was with her husband, together 
with Rollins and a half-dozen men, went away at 
once with Consider. Ance said he would come 
later, as soon as he had had a bite, or, as Rollins 
said was better, he might join them at Mrs. Pres- 
ton’s, where they would seek Riverius if he had 
not already fled. “If he is the man he won’t get 
much time from this crowd,” added Rollins; “ but 
what’s done’s got to be done just, and no hurryin’.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


237 


Then he hastened away, leaving Ance to his rather 
troubled reflections. These were simple if not brief. 
He knew at once that the public opinion of the 
camps would he against Riverius. He knew also 
*that in this lawless wilderness retribution was apt 
to be swift and not over-thoughtful. As to the evi- 
dence against the German, he could tell little ; hut 
if — if it should he enough to hansj him ? Ance did 
not like that. Confession was not in Vickers’s 
mind, but the idea that another should die for an 
accident he, Ance, had caused was a thing grave 
enough to one who valued himself on fair play and 
absence of treachery. He rose at once, and after a 
half-hour of rapid trot through the woods came to 
Riverius’s cabin. The German as he knocked said, 
“ Come in,” and looked up in surprise, adding, 
“ What do you want ?” The faint chivalry of the 
woodman failed him a little at his rather cool re- 
ception, and he wished he had not been in such a 
hurry to act. But Riverius was at present in a sun- 
shiny humor, and saw, too, some sign of anxiety 
in the red wild visage before him. “ Sit down, 
Ance,” he said. 

“I came over — I want to speak to you.” He 
was blown from exertion. 

“Well, I am here. What is it? Can I help 
you in any way ? If you would only quit the bot- 
tle I would be always ready to help you. I was 
never glad a fellow had been drinking until that 
night we had our fight. It was lucky for me. You 
are a brave man, Ance Vickers, and you have no 
business to drink.” 


238 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Ance was pleased. A rough word would have 
stopped him. “ I ain’t as bad as some folks makes 
me out, Mr. Ryverus. I wouldn’t mind tryin’ a 
fall with you ag’in ; hut now that ain’t my arrand. 
And ther’ ain’t no time to lose. Myry Richmond’s 
bin killed this mornin’.” 

“ What ! Killed ! Myra killed ?” 

“ It’s so. It’s my notion she’s had a accident; 
hut the men say you done it, and little Phely she 
says you was thar to-day, and Philetus he’s awful 
sot ag’in’ you, and I jus’ come over to tell you to 
git out of this, quick. They’ll hang you, sure as 
day.” 

“ Mein Gott !” exclaimed Riverius, rising. “ This 
is horrible !” 

“Don’t you stay to talk. Jus’ you git away. 
Take the dug-out and the river.” 

Riverius reflected for a moment. “ What made 
you come to warn me ?” 

“Well, I don’t think you done it. It’s a acci- 
dent. You couldn’t of done it, noways.” 

“ Thank you,” said Riverius. “ Thank you. I 
shall not forget this.” And he put out his hand, 
which Ance took. He felt better. The German 
could escape, still suspected. He would further 
counsel him how to avoid pursuit. All the night 
was before him for flight, and thus Ance would 
remain free from immediate peril, and, what was 
worse, of having a man die for his fault. “ You’ll 
go quick ?” he said. “ You ’ain’t any time to lose.” 

“ Gott in Himmel ! you do not suppose I shall 
run away ?” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


239 


“ Then you’re a dead man. Mind, I tell you.” 

“ I shall not go.” 

“ You must be crazy like, to stay. You don’t 
know Rollins and the rest.” 

“ I shall stay. Thank you all the same.” 

Ance did not like the outlook. “ If them fellers 
knowed I give you warnin’ it ’d be had fur me.” 

“ You may feel sure that I shall not mention you, 
no matter what happens. Now get away. If you 
are seen here you will be suspected.” 

Ance went out. At the door he turned back. 
“ You’d best think about it.” 

“ I have. Good-day.” And Ance, puzzled, went 
out into the woods, and waited again in awful per- 
plexity. 

As to Riverius, he sat down, and, with little ma- 
terial to aid him, thought over the peril about to 
come. It was simply absurd, incredible. But as 
for Bessy Preston, — oh, that was the worst of all ! 
He, too, waited. 


10 


CHAPTER XIX. 


In about half an hour, Riverius saw, at the door 
he had left open, Rollins, Philetus, and a half-dozen 
others, all armed and grave, and behind them 
Ance Vickers. Through the door-way he also saw 
Mrs. Preston, looking over at the group. 

44 Come in,” he said. “ What is it ?” 

Rollins entered at once. 44 Myry Richmond’s been 
murdered to-day,” he said, 44 and you are the man 
that did it.” 

Riverius rose quietly. He did not see at once 
that it was his rdle to seem surprised, and his cool- 
ness served to injure his cause. 

44 Indeed !” he said. 44 That is strange. And 
you mean to say I did it. Come in, men, — and 
you, Philetus. Now listen. I have nothing to hide. 
The thing you tell me is terrible, but I shall show 
you that it is impossible that I could have done it.” 

44 That’s what we want,” said a man. 

44 1 Lad no cause to dislike her.” 

44 Guess not,” said one at the door. 

44 1 went over to see her to offer Philetus a place 
with large wages near Pottsville. I have always 
been good to her and to him. What reason on 
earth have you to think I — I of all people — would 
hu*rt a woman ?” 

44 I’ve got to talk here,” said Philetus. 44 No, 
no; I ain’t goin’ to kill him,” he added, as Rollins 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 241 

put a hand on the rifle the blind man carried more 
from force of habit than for hope of use. 

“ This here man’s been a-comin’ to my house off 

and on, and my wife that’s dead she Oh, 

Lord! what fetched him thar in the night times? 
Many’s the night I’ve got up and sarched my 
clearin’; but I ’ain’t no eyes, and what was the 
use ? He come when he liked. I don’t credit none 
of that ’bout a place. What did he turn me off 
fur, and go to talkin’ ’bout a place now ? It’s ag’in’ 
reason.” 

“ I think you know better,” said Riverius. 

“ ’Twasn’t reason enough to turn me off. ’Bout 
this murder, I say he done it. I’ve got thinkin’ 
eyes, ef I ’ain’t got seein’ eyes. That man killed 
my Myry. God knows what went on thar. Her 
clothes was tore. You seed ’em ; all of you seed 
’em. And my gal she said he sent her out, and 
Myry she told her not to come in soon. She told 
her that. Oh, Lord, Lord, forgive her! And 
didn’t Paul Preston tell me as he sent him away 
too ?” A murmur went up from the men. 

At this moment Mrs. Preston appeared. In a 
few words outside Consider had told her all. “ Let 
me pass,” she said. “ What is all this, Mr. Rollins ?” 

“ It ain’t no place for women,” said Rollins. 
“ Mr. Ryverus is a good deal more than suspected 
of having killed Myry Richmond. Ho one else 
was there to-day. The child was made to go out 
and leave them. He sent Paul off on an errand. 
She says no one else was there.” 

“ It is nonsense,” said Mrs. Preston. “ She may 


242 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


have killed herself. Philetus had made her un- 
happy enough for that or an3 7 thing.” 

“ Yes, or anything,’’ groaned Philetus. 

“ Why did Mr. Ryverus go over there ?” said 
Rollins. 

“ To ask Richmond’s wife to talk to him about 
taking a place on his coal-land near Pottsville.” 

“ Why didn’t he speak to Phil ?” 

She was silent. 

“ Speak out,” said Riverius. “ I desire no con- 
cealments.” 

“ He hated Mr. Riverius.” 

“ And he had a right to,” said the blind man. 

“ Do you suppose, Mrs. Preston,” said Rollins, 
“ any one will believe Ryverus wanted just for 
nothing to help a man he knowed despised him ?” 

“ Yes,” she said; but the men laughed. Then 
she added, “ Mr. Riverius wished to help Mrs. 
Richmond and her child. He had no personal 
quarrel with Philetus, and you will do well to hesi- 
tate as to this business. Philetus is not, I think, a 
sane man. His evidence is worthless.” Again 
there was an angry murmur. 

“ Mrs. Preston,” said Riverius, “ I beg of you to 
leave us. I am among men who will see fair play. 
But first I wish to say that I reached Richmond’s 
cabin about nine, that Paul went with me and left 
me on the way.” 

“ What for ?” said Philetus. 

“I sent him to my camp with a message for 
James.” 

“ Oh !” exclaimed one or two. The deliberate 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


243 


desire to be alone with Miriam shown in getting 
both children away seemed clear to them, and the 
fact that no one else had been there appeared also 
certain. 

“ You surely,” said Riverius, “ will think much 
before you act rashly. I am alone, a stranger. Ho 
man can say I have done evil while among you.” 

“ And I say it,” said Philetus. 

Riverius went on : “I go to see Mrs. Richmond 
on an errand of mercy, and wish of course to talk 
with her alone. On this you lay a charge of 
murder.” 

“ It might have been an accident,” said Ance. 

“ It wasn’t that,” said Rollins. “ Anyways, it 
ain’t a matter to settle this fashion. I’ve sent for 
Pearson and the lower camp. To-morrow morning 
we’ll just go over the whole thing and try this man 
fair. If he didn’t do it, he’ll get off; and if he did 
— well, justice is justice. Here, Mr. Ryverus, 
you’ve got to be made safe. Jones, do you and 
Wilson keep guard round this cabin. Tie his 
hands, Ance. There, take that snow-shoe lacin’.” 

Riverius grew white. “ Mr. Rollins,” he said, 
“ I pledge you my honor I will not try to escape.” 

“We don’t take no man’s word in this sort of 
business. We’ll just make sure you don’t get away. 
Come, clear the cabin.” 

Ance hated it. As he came towards Riverius, 
the men turned to go. 

“ Hush,” said Ance, behind the prisoner. “ I’m 
fur you. Give me your hands.” Riverius quietly 

obeyed. Rollins walked back and looked at the 

16 * 


244 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


German. “ Take his rifle, Ance.” Strict orders 
were given as to the guard, the door was closed, and 
Riverius was left to his reflections. He heard at 
times the steps of the guards. The insects troubled 
him. He lay down or stood up, uncomfortable, 
furious, or in grim wonderment at the absurdity 
of his situation. He had been in battles, he had 
faced wild creatures and wilder men in many lands, 
and was by nature and by habit brave. The danger 
did not greatly trouble him. In no way could he 
bring it strongly home to himself that here outside 
were men who believed that he, John, Baron Rive- 
rius, had killed a peasant woman. He thought of 
the old castle, the great hall, the windows with 
their heraldic blazonry, the arms upon the walls, 
each with its familiar story, and then of his own 
study and the resolute features of his father look- 
ing from the canvas above the fire. He glanced 
about him, laughed outright, and said aloud, “ Der 
Teufel ! the things that bite ! Halloo, there !” he 
cried. At his second call Jones entered. 

“What do you want?’ 5 he said, roughly. 

“Want? I don’t want to die of midges and 
mosquitoes.” 

“Oh, that’s all? Well, here’s Paul Preston’s 
fetched your supper. Git him to build a smudge.” 

Paul came in, silent, and in dreadful trouble. It 
was now quite dark. 

“I’m awful sorry, Mr. Riverius,” said the lad. 
“ I’ve brought your supper. Oh, they’ve tied your 
hands. Let me cut it. Oh, I’d kill them !” And 
he burst into tears 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


245 


“Don’t cry,” said Riverius. “Just brush off 
these mosquitoes and build me a smudge. The 
pot’s in the hearth. No use to cut the cords ; best 
not. And give me the milk to drink. So ; now 
that is all I want; but tell your mother to come and 
see me to-night. She must manage it. Thank you, 
old fellow. Now don’t cry. We’ll pull through 
somehow.” 

The scene without would not have reassured 
him. By degrees threescore rough lumbermen 
had been over to Richmond’s and seen the still 
corpse, and heard the tale in divers versions, and 
come away to Mrs. Preston’s to sit around the fires 
in her clearing or to relieve guard or discuss the 
murder. Only Ance and Consider were at all 
friendly to the accused, and the blind wretched old 
Philetus wandered from group to group, relating 
his hallucinations as realities to men devoid of 
judgment, until Rollins and Pearson saw that it 
was becoming hard to control or influence the wild 
mob about them. Pearson was desirous to send the 
prisoner to Smethport for trial ; but this was not 
the way of the woods, and Rollins knew, with 
much doubt in his mind as he discussed the matter, 
that in one fashion or another the fate of Riverius 
would be settled at early morn. He meant at least 
that he should be fairly dealt with. 

The evening wore away, and about nine Mrs. 
Preston sent for Rollins. She pointed to a seat. 
“ Mr. Rollins,” she said, “ you are going to get into 
trouble.” 

“ How?” 


246 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Mr. Riverius is a German nobleman. He is 
rich, well known, and powerful, and has friends. 
Just reflect how absurd it all is. The want of 
motive, — the chance that she did it herself.” 

“ Oh, that couldn’t be. There had been a strug- 
gle.” 

“ Well, the chance that another did it. These 
woods are full of bad men.” 

“ That’s so ; but who else could have done it ?” 

“ Will you help me and him ?” 

He was disturbed. He hated Riverius, but it 
was one thing to hate, and another to send a man 
possibly innocent to death. 

“ It would be as much as my life’s worth.” 

“ And what will it be worth if — if — oh, if you 
hang an honest gentleman and learn in a week who 
really did this awful thing ?” 

“I’m not everybody, ” he said, and began to 
wish he had been less urgent. 

“ Well, get him away. You can do it. I will 
give you a thousand dollars, — all my land, — any- 
thing.” 

“ It’s no use,” he said. “ I haven’t got the 
power.” 

“ Then take care of yourself in future,” she said, 
rising. 

He looked at her sharply and went out. 

“ She’s a good bit of a man, that woman is,” he 
said. 

It was a little after this when Mrs. Preston re- 
ceived her message from Paul. She rose at once 
and went out to find Rollins. The men looked up 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


247 


curious as she passed among them. She found 
Rollins talking earnestly to some of his lumbermen. 

“ I won’t have it,” he said, as she came up. “ It 
ain’t too sure, and he’s got to have a fair trial, and 
Pearson’s men aren’t all here. You wait till they 
come.” lie stepped forward to meet Mrs. Preston. 

“ I want to see Mr. Riverius,” she said. 

“ I don’t know about that,” he returned. 

“ Do you think any one will stop me? You’re a 
poor set of men. What can a woman do that you 
need fear ?” 

“ Oh, let her go,” cried one of the men. 

“ Thank you. There is one man here with a 
soul.” 

“ Come, then,” said Rollins, who never had the 
same opinion for two minutes. 

“ I want a half-hour.” 

“ All right.” And he preceded her, said a word 
to the guard, opened the door, let her in, and, 
closing it, waited without. 


CHAPTER XX. 


“ It is I,” she said, — “ Bessy,” trying to see him, 
as she entered the dark room. 

“ I am over here,” he said, quietly, rising from 
the bed. “ My wrists are tied. Ho doubt Paul 
told you. Sit down by me.” She did so, her hands 
on her lap. 

“You are a good and brave woman. I have 
little hope of escape. Don’t cry.” She was sob- 
bing like a child. 

“ Listen. Do you know how I love you ?” 

“Yes.” 

“ I was a fool, — a weak fool. I hesitated. Edu- 
cation and traditions are cruel bonds. I am ashamed 
to speak of it, but I must.” 

“ Ho, no ; I understand. I always understood. 
You love me. That is enough.” 

“ I want to hear you say I am forgiven.” 

She bent over and kissed his cheek, he feeling 
her tears wet his face and instinctively straining a 
moment to release his hands. 

“ My God !” he groaned, “ but life is sweet, and 
I might have spared you all this if I had but been 
less a fool.” 

“ Don’t ! don’t ! I cannot bear that. There is a 
fate in it. I — I sent you to Miriam’s, and I might 
have known better. Oh, yes, I might have known 
better.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


249 


lie was calmed by her despair. “ Do not let us 
hurt each other this way,” he said. “ Try to attend 
to what I say. It is most needful. You can do me 
no better service. Try, dear.” 

She put her arm behind him and caught the 
bound hands, whose touch as she felt the cords 
seemed to drain life of power to suffer. He waited, 
and, as the dulled sound of oath and laugh and the 
increasing clamorous talk without reached them, 
she sat up stiffly, instinctively governing body and 
shaken mind at once. 

“ How go on. I can listen.” 

Even in this bitter hour he had pleasure in the 
way in which his pride in her was justified. 

“ Take off my ring.” 

She did as he directed. He wore it on his thumb, 
after the German way which had much surprised 
poor Miriam. 

“ Keep it,” he said. 

“ Yes.” 

“In my portfolio are papers, deeds, and ad- 
dresses. They will tell you all you will need to 
know. Keep whatever in my trunk you want. 
Give Paul my rifle and books. You must write 
to Fritz. He will have the old place. Tell him 
everything, not soon, but when you feel able. That 
is all, I think.” She remained silent, waiting to 
know what else he had to say. He went on, “ I 
did want to take you to my home. I was so proud 
of you. I had written of my hope to a friend. 
Fritz will send you a miniature. Keep it. Keep 
it where I can see you. And pray for me, Bessy. 


250 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Ah, with you I should have been better, wiser. 
Don’t stay here to-morrow. Go away to-night.” 

“ I shall be by you, if — if you die,” she said. 
“Do not fear for me.” 

“ If?” he said, tranquilly. “ Ah, my child, there 
is no ‘if’ here. Listen.” The tumult without was 
Growing. “ Have no delusion about this. Another 
woman than you I would cheat with hope. It is 
best not, — best to face it, to feel sure that I am a 
lost man to this world.” 

She rose as he spoke. “ I cannot bear it,” she 
said. “ I cannot make it seem possible. God will 
help us.” 

“ Yes, in his way, not ours. I want you to go 
now. Before you go, I want to say to you that there 
is no measure of earthly love I do not give you. 
Take that with you. A day will come when it 
will he pleasant to recall. Kiss me, and don’t stay. 
I want you to go.” 

“ Why must I ? I cannot.” 

“ I at least do not deceive myself. I know these 
men. My time may be brief. I want to be alone 
with my thoughts. With you here I cannot think. 
All life and all its joys reel round me at your touch. 
I must get away from these, from time. You un- 
derstand. Kiss me.” 

She threw herself on his neck and cluno- to him, 
kissing him amidst a rain of tears. 

“Do you want to weaken me, Bessy ?” 

She rose up at once. 

“ Good-by. It will not, shall not be. God will 
help us.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


251 


“ Do not deceive yourself,” he said, again, “ and 
do not bear useless malice. Learn to live a«*ain. 

o 

You owe something to Paul. These men are as 
beasts, who know not what they are doing.” 

“ I shall neither forget nor forgive.” 

“ Bessy !” 

“ It is so. I shall go mad. Oh, men, men !” 
And she fled violently, casting the door open and 
going haughtily through the groups and past the 
fires. 

“ Mein Gott !” he said, “ that was hard.” 

Meanwhile, another was almost as anxious as she. 
Ance went about among the lumbermen and heard 
their talk. Whiskey was plenty and passions were 
high. Perhaps even more clearly than Hollins he 
saw the nearness of the danger. A word, a mo- 
ment, would bring death. As he passed a fire, he 
paused, hearing Rollins warn the men to be careful, 
as the whole country was like tinder, no rain having 
fallen for two months. Rollins moved off to repeat 
his caution, and a man called to Ance, “ Come and 
have a drink.” 

“ I don’t want none.” 

“ That’s queer. Anyhow, set down and help rig 
this here noose. It’ll be wanted to-morrow, or 
sooner, maybe.” 

“ Rig it for yourself,” he replied. “ You’ll need 
it some day.” 

Suddenly he saw a long mass of gray moss pen- 
dent from the limbs of a dead pine. Dimly seen in 
the wood by the leaping firelight, it took the shape 
of a man’s body suspended. “ That’s awful !” he 


252 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


groaned. “ I’ve got to do it some way. 0 Lord, 
git me off this thing, and I’ll never drink no more.” 
It was the nearest approach to a prayer that had 
passed his lips for many a year. 

The suggestion of fire left in his brain a dull 
hope. He stood still a moment, and then went 
over to Mrs. Preston’s through the men. 


CHAPTER XXL 


Vickers approached the cabin cautiously from 
the back door. He knocked and waited. Then a 
voice said, “ Come in.” He entered. Mrs. Preston 
was sitting in troubled thought. 

“ Who is that ?” 

“ Me, — Ance Vickers.” And he shut the door. 

“ What do you want ?” 

“ Kin you trust a man ?” 

“ Yes,” she said, alertly. 

“ You’re his friend.” 

“ I should have been his wife.” 

“He didn’t do that thing; and, as sure as day, 
there’ll be murder done before sun-up.” 

“ I know it.” 

“ Look here. Are you grit to do a big thing?” 

“ Go on, and hurry. I can do anything.” 

“ Then do you and Paul take some matches and 
go into the woods and git apart a bit and light three 
or four birches. Git well hack, a good five hundred 
yards. Then run for the river, and keep under the 
bank, and back to your clearin’, and come right up, 
so as no one don’t see you.” 

“ A thousand dollars if you save him.” 

“ I don’t want it. It ain’t that. I know he never 
done it. But run, run like mad, when you’ve lit 
the birches. The whole country ’ill go. They’d 
kill ’most any one they ketched, man or woman.” 


254 


FAR IN THE FOREST 


“ Good !” she said. 

“ Mind, it’s your doin’, and there won’t he a stick 
from here to Smith’s tract that won’t go.” 

“ Let it burn,” she said. “ But as to Mr. Rive- 
rius, what shall you do ?” 

“ You fire them birches with this wind a-blowin’, 
and I’ll look arter him. And there’ll be resks for 
some.” 

“ What ! These men ? Thank God ! I trust 
you, Ance.” 

“ Then in half an hour.” 

She called Paul from the outside and calmly told 
him. He listened in his usual patient way. Then 
he said, “ I see. It will work. Ance will do it.” 
And together they slipped out and passed into the 
woods. 

It was hot, and a strong gale was roaring in the 
pines and blowing on their backs as they went. 
Meanwhile, Ance found Rollins. 

“ I’ll just look after that knot a bit. Couldn’t I 
leave it off for the night? The flies is awful.” 

“ Oh, do as you like,” said Rollins. Ready to 
rush into danger, he cooled off visibly as the risks 
multiplied. 

On his way Yickers met the blind Philetus. 
“ Ance,” he said, “ did you see Phely ?” 

“Yes; she’s with Consider.” 

“ She ’ain’t no mother now, and I’ve got to quit 
drink. Don’t you never go to make me drink 
ag’in.” 

“ I won’t, Phil.” 

“ Did you see my Myry ?” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


255 


“ No,” said Ance, faintly. 

“ They said she was that white, and her face 
like a angel’s. You’d like to come over and see 
her ’fore she’s put in the ground?” 

“ Yes. Oh, Lord !” groaned Ance, as he moved 
away. For the first time, the awfulness of the 
calamity to others oppressed him. The motherless 
child, the helpless blind man, troubled him. His 
own safety being assured, he was open to under- 
stand and measurably pity what he now saw, — the 
consequences to Phil, who admired his strength 
and courage, and to the child, who liked him as she 
liked all masculine beings. Of late, Phil had been 
physically failing, as the camps knew well ; and now 
what would become of Phely and of him ? Want, 
Ance could appreciate. He had felt it. That 
needed no conjuring fancy to bring it sharply before 
his mind. Serious beliefs the man had not of any 
definiteness. These need for sustentation in such 
natures frequent reminders and example and usage. 
Some vague God there was for him, no doubt, but 
more the memory of a child’s faith than a definite 
belief. Certainly all his reflections now were per- 
sonally directed and limited to the lower levels of 
consequence. And yet, by degrees, his awkward, 
rusty mental and moral machinery, fed by time and 
chance, was competently grinding out torments, 
and was also pinching into capacities for human 
use faculties for feeling long benumbed by drink 
and disuse. These mills of God which grind so 
slowly grind out at last the bread of a larger, better 
life. 


17 


256 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Alice wound in and out among the men, troubled 
by Philetus, who clung to him, held his sleeve, and 
showed an increasing sense of dependence. Once 
Rollins called him back and urged him to take care 
the prisoner did not get away. Ance grinned. 
“ He’s got two hearts, like an Injun,” he muttered ; 
“ don’t know what he wants.” At last he was free 
to enter the German’s cabin, but he had lost ten 
precious minutes. At the door he turned and 
looked about him. Several camp-fires blazed on 
the clearing, — none over fifty yards away. Ho 
leave had been asked. Around them lay some of 
the men, drinking, and in wild clamorous discus- 
sion. Others moved to and fro. Beyond was 
Mrs. Preston’s, and the woods were all around, but 
far more open towards the river, where trees had 
been felled to let in the air. Riverius’s cabin was 
set back in the forest, and well shaded. Around 
it two men walked with loaded rifles. For the 
first time since the death of Miriam, Ance had a 
dull sense of pleasure. Danger, conflict, chance for 
action, strung to normal tension the slack nerves 
of the man, hitherto hustled about by brute emo- 
tions and without power or hope to resist. The 
idea of material difficulty at once, helped him. A 
dim sense of courted peril as expiatory was in his 
blunted consciousness, and, with a renewed sense 
of efficiency, he smiled as he said to the sentries, — 

“ I’m to fix him for the night. I’ll be a half- 
hour, maybe ; then I’m to take your place, Jones.” 

“ He won’t want no bed to-morrow night,” said 
Jones, “ the way the men’s talkin’.” 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


257 


“ That’s so,” said Ance. “ Wouldn’t bet he’d 
see mornin’, ef I had my way.” Then he went 
in and closed the door. 

“ What time is it ?” said Eiverius through the 
dark, smoky atmosphere, thick from the smoulder- 
ing smudge. 

“Nigh on to eleven, I guess.” 

“ Oh, it’s Vickers, is it not ?” 

“ Yes, it’s me.” And he drew near. 

“ What’s wanted now ? Anything new, Ance ?” 

“ Look here, Mr. Kyverus. Air you minded to 
stay and resk it? You was this mornin’. You’d ’a’ 
bin wiser ef you’d ’a’ took to my notion and left.” 

“ I shall stay. Indeed, what choice is left me ?” 

“ You needn’t.” 

“What! Why should I want to go? I am 
innocent.” 

“ Talk low,” said Ance. “ You ’ain’t got one 
chance in a hundred. I’ve come to help you. 
Mrs. Preston she says go. That’s what she says. 
There’s men now out there gittin’ a rope ready.” 

The German shuddered. He thought of those 
of his race who had died in battle or by the axe, 
and to perish by a brute’s death amidst a howling 
drunken mob, — “ Ah !” 

“ I will do as you say. What risk will you run ? 
That troubles me, Ance.” 

“All right. I don’t run no resk. We kin do 
it. Now you listen. Let’s untie your hands. 
It ’ll supple ’em a bit. You may want ’em.” 

“Thank you. Himmel ! what it is to be free 
again! What next?” He wished much to ask 


258 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Ance why he was so eager to help him, but he 
thought this could wait, and Ance was keenly 
anxious to act. 

“Look here. In ten minutes I’ve got to take 
Jones’s place. When I go out, tie this deer-thong 
across the door-way, ’bout a foot high. When I 
call, 6 Fire ! fire !’ then you git ready. Wilson’s a 
dead shot. I’ll holler to him to run in and look 
arter you. He’ll trip over the thong, sure. Then 
you jump over him, take to the woods, and make 
for the river. I’ll shoot over you. Go right into 
the river and let the water take you down. The 
dug-out’s resky. They’d maybe see it. .Kin you 
swim?” 

“I? Of course.” 

“ Well, them rapids don’t trifle with a man ; but 
it’s the only way. Are you game fur it ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Take your boots off ’fore you wade in. They’re 
onhandy in the water. Drop ’em when you’re well 
out. Try to make in at Laurel Mountain. Go right 
up to my cabin and hide. Guess no one won’t look 
fur you thar.” 

“ Is that all ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ What fire is it you expect ? Who is helping 
you ?” 

“ That’ll keep. ’Ain’t no time now. And look 
sharp. I’ll jine you soon’s I kin git off.” And, so 
saying, he went out. 

Riverius, moving with caution, at once laid aside 
his coat, put a pistol in his belt, secured all the gold 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


259 


he had about his person, arranged the cord across 
the door-way, and waited anxiously a few feet from 
the entrance. The time seemed endless. “ Ach !” 
he exclaimed. A sudden, dulled murmur came to 
him from without through the gloom. The noise 
of drunken revel ceased abruptly. Then there were 
oaths, cries of “ Fire ! lire !” Suddenly Alice also 
shouted, “ Fire ! fire !” and, throwing the door wide 
open, cried, u Run in, Wilson, and stay by him. 
Shoot him if he runs. Quick !” 

Wilson obeyed, made a hasty rush into the cabin, 
caught on the deer-thong, and fell headlong with a 
curse. Riverius leaped over him as a deer leaps, 
and before the guard could regain his rifle was oft' 
and away into the woods on his right. A single 
shot passed high above him as Ance fired. He 
made for the river direct and with rash indifference 
to exposure. As he crossed an open space, he was 
seen in the growing light, the night itself being 
none too dark, and the ping, ping of two rifle-balls 
perilously close did not lessen his speed. He tore 
off his boots and plunged in, waded some thirty 
feet, struck wild water, and in a moment was fight- 
ing for life in the white rush of the rapids. Then 
he let fall his boots. For two long minutes he was 
rolled over, tumbled about, hustled against rocks. 
Once his head struck, and for a moment he was 
dazed, and then a vast surge lifted him with strong 
tenderness over a great boulder, and at once he was 
in swift but quiet water. He shook the moisture 
from his face and hair and passed a hand over his 
eyes to clear his sight. He was flying with dan- 


260 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


gerous speed down the black hurry of the stream. 
He looked about him, and saw only leaping jets of 
spray, black wood-masses, and over all, behind him 
and to left, a splendor of ruddy light on high and 
here and there quick spurts of flame and mounting 
sparks. Then ahead he caught sight of white 
water, and struck out for the mid-current. With 
a vast effort he won the wild crest, sure that to fail 
was death. The last rapid had been child’s play to 
this. It was brief. There was one fierce shoot, 
with a fall of fifteen feet. It was like a drop 
through the air. He shot under, and came up 
breathless and exhausted. The rest was easy. He 
kept his head straight, and gradually worked shore- 
ward. He seemed to be in a narrow vale of black 
water, the shores close in on him, the sky as it were 
down almost upon him. He was clear-headed 
enough to wonder at the delusion. Then he saw 
the slope of Laurel Mountain, and the sharp line 
of the lumber-slide where it crossed a gorge. Sud- 
denly he struck bottom. He had been needlessly 
swimming in two feet of water. At last, tired out 
and bruised, he rolled himself on shore and sat 
down to rest. The glow behind him was now mag- 
nificent. A vast glory of rich ruby light flared 
upward, and, cloud-caught, flooded all the sky. He 
wondered. Some one had fired the woods. Two 
rainless months, the leaves sapless, the floor of pine- 
needles, the very earth dry, the wind raging furi- 
ously through the trees overhead. The woods 
would burn to the river, and quicker to the east- 
ward. There was ruin to many, risk to not a few. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


261 


Enormous loss, centuries of growth gone, to save 
a single life. Who had done it ? Even in his still 
present peril the vastness of the sacrifice excited 
his imagination. At last, thoughtful, alert and 
rested, he struggled up the mountain, hurting his 
feet and plunging through the tangle of the vigor- 
ous laurels. After an hour, he won the farther spur, 
and found himself near the top, and at the door of 
Vickers’s cabin. He cast himself down on the 
ground and felt safe for the first time. The spur 
he was on rose nearly nine hundred feet above the 
river, and back of it, broken by abrupt ravines, the 
country gradually fell away, a sloping table-land. 
The main mountain dropped more precipitously 
to the Alleghany, and parallel to its course was 
cleft by the deep rocky gorges which had caused 
Riverius to suggest a slide as the readiest means 
of getting logs to the water. 

How and then, glancing out at the ominous and 
growing light of the burning woods, the German sat 
in thought. The wfind was blowing more and more 
fiercely. This, he reflected, would probably keep 
the fire away from Mrs. Preston’s clearing, which 
covered some two hundred acres, and where great 
precautions had been taken against the spread of 
fire. She and Paul were safe at least for the time ; 
but it was quite possible that, as the sparks mounted, 
upper currents might scatter them far and wide and 
mysteriously light at a distance new and destruc- 
tive fires. As for himself, he had little fear. There 
would be nobody to trouble him so long as this 
remorseless blaze endangered camps, cattle, oxen, 


262 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


wood-sleds, and the rough homes of men. But he 
was flying from the suspicion of murder. Life, 
happy life, would be out of the question until that 
matter was settled and the murderer known. Im- 
agination poisoned for him all the sweet future. It 
is at times a cruel scourge to the refined and gentle. 
He seemed to himself to be involved personally in 
the train of consequences that had led to Miriam’s 
death. Had he but waited a day longer, it would 
not have been. Had he less desired to help her, no 
suspicion could have touched him. How soon after 
he left did it occur ? How could a man have done 
so brutal a deed ? Could any set of contingencies 
ever lead him to do such an act? Suddenly he 
shivered. It was in part from the growing chill in 
the night air at that height, and in part because he 
had a sudden realization of the fact that a man who 
had not done a murder might come to believe he 
had done it. He recoiled as from a precipice, 
leaped to his feet, and began to walk to and fro. 
He had the fortunate intellectual training which 
enables a man to drive back to their caves the wild 
beasts of morbid emotion and to keep them penned. 
The exercise helped him. At last he went into the 
cabin, found a blanket, and lay down on the floor, 
dragging over him a worn buffalo-robe and some 
dead boughs meant for kindling. He could not 
sleep, but the warming body helped the mind to 
wholesomeness, and he lay and thought of Bessy 
Preston. 


CHAPTER XXII. 


When Paul and his mother, avoiding the camp- 
fires, slipped aside and went into the woods, the 
riotous noise around the fires was at its worst, and 
oaths and loud words and broken songs were in the 
pleasant night air, and were blown to her ear by 
the growing wind which pursued her steps. 
“ Come, Paul,” she said. “ Could God have made 
such beasts ?” 

The boy was singularly resolute. He was all of 
the mother, and more, and none of the weaker 
father. He understood her well, and had a boy’s 
indifference to the consequences of what they were 
about to do. 

At last they paused some five hundred yards or 
more from the clearing. “ How, mother,” he said. 
“ If Ance is to get him off, we must make sure. 
Look here. We’ll set long bits of birch sloped this 
way against a dozen trees. Then we can light the 
farthest from the river and touch off each as we go 
down the slope. You take the four nearest the 
river, — any ones. They are all big birches and 
pretty ragged. The bit of bark will take a little 
time to burn up to the trunk. How, mother. Be 
quick, and keep me in sight. The boat is right 
below, if they follow uo ; but they won’t. How.” 
He leaned down and very coolly adjusted the slips 
of bark. “ Ready ?” he said. 


264 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Yes,” she replied. 

There was the sputter and yellow flame of matches 
struck. In a few seconds a dozen little innocent 
spires of rich, crimson flame were climbing up 
the bark. He was at her side, and looked back. 
“ By George !” he cried. In an instant a half- 
dozen trees were ablaze. The loose ragged hark 
of the birch, always inflammable, was now as dry as 
if baked. The beautiful wild flame rose instantly 
with a furious howl to the top of the tree, a thing 
to be remembered when once seen and heard. 
“ Run !” he said, for she stood as if paralyzed with 
terror by the demon they had set free. The forest 
was like day with an unearthly red, and the shadows 
of trees flashed out black as jet across the dry 
woodland floor. As they fled, behind them the 
roar of the flame as it leaped and caught and 
ruined each great birch was repeated over and 
over. He pulled her down the steep bank. Then 
he half cocked his rifle, which he had kept ready, 
and waited. The sound of drunken orgy suddenly 
ceased to load the air with curses. Loud cries 
were heard, and three rifle-shots, as her grip on 
Paul’s arm tightened, and she prayed as women 
rarely pray. 

“ He’s off, sure,” said Paul. “ Come, let’s get 
hack ; and be careful, mother, and don’t take hold 
of me. Mind, I shall shoot if any one says a word 
to you.” 

“ Don’t, if you can help it,” she said. 

As they walked up the stream, unknown to them 
the kindly water bore past them in the darkness 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


265 


what she loved best on earth. Opposite their cabin 
they went up from the bank. 

“ Ask no questions, Paul.” 

“ Of course,” he said. 

The camp-fires were deserted. In vain hope the 
men, under Rollins’s lead, had gone into the woods 
to fight the fire. Bessy and Paul gained the house 
readily, and stood at the door. 

“ Let me go and see if he’s off,” he said. 

“ Not a step. Wait. It is in God’s hands now. 
Put away that rifle.” 

He did so, and came back. The roar from 
the burning wood no man could hear without 
some sense of fear. The wind leaped on it as 
with a living thing’s delight, and drove the flame 
in great flaring masses from tree to tree. Acres 
were ablaze. The pines beyond the birch grove 
tossed, writhed, and blazed, exuding resinous sap 
to feed the fire. Beneath, the dry pine-needles 
carried it far and wide with a speed past belief. 
There was something like the energy of life in 
the rage with which the fire did its work, now 
rising in cruel splendor high in heaven, now, as 
if mysteriously eager, darting in long blasts of 
ruin through the open spaces. Over all rose, 
black and awful, a growing, rolling shaft of dense 
smoke, and, spreading out above in a black dome, 
rosy with reflections from beneath and starred 
with sparks and gusts of flame which seemed to 
burn in mid-air, spread and spread wider and 
more wide. 

“ It is awful, my son,” she said. 


266 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ We did it well, mother. I must know about 
Mr. Riverius.” 

“ Wait.” 

Presently her patient courage had its reward. 
Two men came out of the woods and passed 
quickly before them. 

“ This is awful business, Mrs. Preston. There 
won’t be a tree from here to Damson’s Ferry. 
You’re pretty safe, unless the wind turns.” 

“ Must ’a’ bin sot afire,” said the other man. 

“ That’s what I say,” said Wilson. “ It’s bin 
done o’ purpose.” 

“ Where is Mr. Riverius ?” she said. She could 
bear the suspense no longer. 

“ You won’t be sorry to know he got away.” 

“ Indeed !” 

“ I missed him, that’s a fact. It was a trick, the 
whole thing. I ’ain’t bin back yet to look, but 
there was somethin’ tripped me at the door, and I 
didn’t wait to see. We came for axes. Come, 
Joe. This fire’ll bust up Rollins.” And they 
hastened away towards the burning forest. 

“ George !” said the bo3 T , “ Rollins will suffer for 
to-day’s work; and I’m not sorry, either.” 

“ Hush, Paul. Run up to his cabin and see. 
Bring any papers you can find, and his note-books 
on the table. Stop, I’ll come too.” 

They ran across the deserted open space, and 
entered, Paul first. He fell over the deer-thong. 
“Look out,” he said. “ Mother, that was clever.” 
And he explained it to her as she stood. 

“ Get it off. Hide it,” she said. He cut it away 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 267 

and put it in his pocket as she came in, and, strik- 
ing a match, lit a candle. At once they gathered 
up papers, note-books, and a portfolio which was 
locked. “ Take them, Paul.” And he sped away. 
Then she stood alone. It was the first time she 
had been by herself in the cabin. “ God bless and 
keep you !” she prayed, and went out. 

A half-hour later, Rollins came hack with Ance 
and some other men, and, black with smoke, en- 
tered her dwelling. He sat down, exhausted, while 
the men stood about. 

“ What is it you want ?” said Bessy. 

“ Where were you when this fire started, Mrs. 
Preston ?” 

“ In the house,” she said, calmly. 

“ And this hoy ?” 

“ In the house also.” 

“I’d hang him up a bit and find out,” said a 
man, the foreman of Rollins’s gang. 

“ What! a boy like that ther ?” exclaimed Ance. 
“ Hot ef I know it.” There was a murmur of 
dissent. 

“You are fools,” said Mrs. Preston. “Do you 
think I want to see my woods afire ?” 

“ I don’t know,” returned Rollins. “ For a turn 
of a cent, I’d do it. I’d know someway. I’m a 
ruined man. Thirty years of work clean gone. 
Hang him ? I’d hang you if I was sure.” 

“ Coward !” she said. 

“Oh, this won’t do, Rollins!” cried a man, 
coming forward. 

“ And that’s what I say,” added Ance. 


268 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


Opinion was against him, and Rollins doggedly 
went out. 

“ Guess Ryverus he got off,” said Ance, boldly. 

“ And there’s no time to look for him, nuther,” 
said another. 

Meanwhile, Rollins began to give orders as to 
his distant camp and oxen, and sent men away up 
the river to do what they could. In an hour the 
cabin was left silent, and Becky, Paul, and his 
mother sat watching the growth of the blaze which 
the two latter had started. Ance accepted a mis- 
sion from Rollins, but soon turned aside, struck for 
the river, and in an hour or so was at his own 
cabin. 

When the men had gone, Becky persuaded Mrs. 
Preston to lie down for the few hours left of the 
night, promising to keep awake and be watchful. 
Paul declared that he would keep her company, 
but before long sunk down on the boards of the 
little piazza which sheltered the front of the cabin, 
and was soon lost in sleep. Becky covered him 
with a blanket, tucked another under his head, and 
sat staring at the enormous dome of rosy gold 
above the still growing fire. There was less wind, 
and the smoke and flame went up straight in air, 
not yet so far away that Becky could not hear the 
dull roar and catch at times the explosive sound of 
some suddenly-heated tree split by the swift boiling 
of its sap. 

The woman had been but a spectator at the play, 
and was capable only of such human interests as 
habit gives, appetites command, or mere animal 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


269 


curiosity imparts. Just now, she was a little dis- 
turbed. The stillness threatened a change of wind. 
All her life she had lived in the woods, and knew 
well their dangers. The fire had left a hundred 
yards unburned between the place at which it 
started and the clearing. This belt was now slowly 
yielding to the flames, which, however, might pos- 
sibly do no harm, as the open space was broad and 
two weeks before had been harrowed over to de- 
stroy the dry grass and prepare for risk, since in 
all that land no man had passed a day since June 
without fear or thought of this dreaded enemy. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


About six o’clock Becky awakened Paul. He 
started up. 

“ What is it?” he said. 

“ You’d best go and look round in the woods 
and see if ther’ ain’t no fire goin’ to start ’mong 
the pines. The wind’s ’most stopped, and them 
sparks is a-droppin’. It might rain ’fore night. 
Don’t make no noise. Yer mother’s fell asleep. 
I was in to see.” 

“ I’ll go,” he said. 

He made a complete and distant .circuit in the 
woods, and at the river climbed a lightning-scathed 
pine. A hundred feet in air he sat astride of a limb 
and looked in growing wonder. Widening from 
the place at which it set out, the fire had spread to 
the river, and inland for miles. Far away it still 
raged under mounting, heaving masses of smoke, 
which now and then burst into gigantic gusts of 
fire high in air as the gases the products of im- 
perfect combustion were sufficiently heated from 
below. The river-bed was full of smoke, and at 
times to left he could see the sun, an umber globe, 
and sometimes as the smoke veil on the river 
swirled or lifted it cast on the water the same 
sombre tint. The boy recognized in the vastness 
of the catastrophe and in the unusualness of the 
lights and colors something which made him serious. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


271 


He wondered where Riverius was now, and at last 
descended. Perhaps he had taken the dug-out. He 
would look. 

As he approached the shore, he paused. The 
pirogue was pulled up, and in it asleep lay Phi- 
letus, his head propped on a stiff bit of bark set 
against the bow. On his breast, also asleep, and 
wrapped in his blanket, was the little Ophelia. Paul 
touched him, and at last shook him. He was sleep- 
ing profoundly. He sat up. “ What’s that ?” he 
said. 

“ It is I, Paul Preston. How could you sleep in 
this smoke? It’s awful.” The child was coughing 
in her slumber. 

“ That’s so,” returned Philetus. “ Got to get out 
of this.” 

Phely aroused as he lifted her. “ Phely’s hun- 
gry,” she said. “ Phely wants mother.” 

“ Oh, Lord !” groaned Philetus. 

“ Come,” said Paul. “My mother will get her 
breakfast. Come along, Phil.” 

“You’re a boy, and ’ain’t no reason. Your 
mother and me ain’t friends no more. She give it 
to me hot yesterday. I’m goin’ home.” 

“ You can’t do it, Phil. It isn’t safe alone. If 
the wind changes, there won’t be a tree alive down 
to the Ohio. Wait for Consider. He said he’d be 
back; and Phely — the child’s half starved.” 

“I’ll go,” he answered, and silently followed 
Paul through the thickening smoke, which was less 
oppressive as they rose above the stream. 

About twenty feet from the cabin, Philetus sat 
18 


272 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


down on a stump. “ Take her in,” he said, “ and 
feed the maid. I’ll hide here.” 

“ Come, Phely,” said Paul. He did not question 
Phil’s decision, and meant merely to report it to 
his mother and leave it to her. Ophelia was easily 
comforted by Becky’s supplies, and Mrs. Preston, 
after hearing from Paul, went out at once to Phi- 
letus. 

She was happy over Riverius’s escape, and awed 
and even troubled at the thing she had done, now 
that the need for action had passed by. It was as 
if she had wakened by a touch an earthquake or 
some such enormous physical catastrophe beyond 
the common power of mortal summons. Yester- 
day night it had seemed not only needful, and there- 
fore right, but also a just and delightful vengeance. 
It hurt her, too, that she had lied to Rollins and 
before Paul. She was her gentle self to-day, hum- 
ble, thankful, and free from passion. 

“ Come in and eat, Philetus,” she said. 

“ Hot bite or sup in that cabin. You ’ain’t bin no 
friend of mine. You’re his friend that murdered 
my Miriam. You sot them woods ablaze. You 
done it. You raised that hell-tire that’s a-roarin’ 
yonder. May it find him, find him, and burn his 
body and scorch his soul !” 

Bessy recoiled, terrified. “ You are foolish. I, 
a woman, — I set my own woods afire ? Nonsense !” 

“Will you go to say you didn’t do it?” She 
could not, would not lie again, and was glad that 
he was unable to see her face. “ You ain’t used to 
lyin’. You done it well to Rollins. I heerd about it. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


273 


You can't lie to me. The Lord’s on my side. He’s 
a-listenin’. When you’re a-castin’ up accounts with 
him, he says there’s a murderer loose, there’s a dead 
woman a-lyin’ white and still, there’s a little help- 
less thing savin’ ‘Mother!’ like to break a man’s 
heart.” 

“ Philetus, it is useless to talk to you. If you 
say that I set that wood afire, you know what may 
come of it. Leave me Ophelia, and go home with 
Consider. I hear that Mrs. Rollins went there. 
When all is settled, come back, and we will talk 
about the child. I want to help her and you.” 

He stood silent a moment. “ I’m that dazed, I 
don’t know. I’m a-seein’ red all the while, — red 
like blood. Where’s that man Ryverus?” 

“ I do not know.” 

“ Keep the child. He won’t hurt her, I guess.” 

“ You are worn out, Philetus. You want food.” 

“ Hot bite or sup in that cabin.” 

“ Well, I’ll send it out to you.” 

“ Hot in nothin’ he’s touched.” 

“ Ho.” 

“ Then I'll take it. It is willed that we should 
eat.” 

She left the distraught old man, and sent him his 
breakfast by Becky. Then he waited patiently till 
Consider came, and went away with him to the 
desolated cabin and the dead wife. 


CHAPTER XXI Y. 


When Ance entered his cabin, he looked around, 
and, seeing no one, began to think that Riverius 
had been lost in the river. The German kept silent, 
to make sure in the darkness before he spoke that 
it was certainly Vickers. The latter stood at the 
door and lifted a glass to see how much whiskey 
he poured out. As he did so, Riverius was sure, 
and said, aloud, “ Don’t do that.” Ance dropped 
flask and corn-cob stopper, and turned. 

“You skeered me.” He was trembling. 

Riverius rose. “ You must not drink. We shall 
both want clear heads. How is it at Mrs. Pres- 
ton’s?” 

“ Oh, all right ; but them woods is burnin’ like 
the devil was a-blowin’ ’em.” 

“ Who set them afire ? You did not tell me.” 

“Mrs. Preston and Paul. They done it well, 
too.” 

“ Mrs. Preston !” murmured Riverius. Again 
he owed her a life, but now no sense of over- 
powering obligation disturbed him. “ Ah ! she is 
worth a dozen of me,” he thought. “ Is it burning 
still ?” 

“Burnin’! You bet; and it’ll burn for a week, 
unless the rain comes. Mostly them big fires 
fetches rain. Anyway, it’ll keep the men a-flyin’ 
round and git us a chance to leave. We’d best lie 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


275 


by here two or three days and then take to the 
river.” 

“ Could you carry a message to Mrs. Preston to- 
morrow ?” 

“ I might.” 

“ And now about that murder, Ance, — if it was 
one. I have heard so little. I want to understand 
it all, and fully. I suppose you can tell me.” 

They were seated, the one on a rough settle, the 
other, Ance, on the bunk. The excitement of the 
escape, the fire, and the need for action had in a 
measure helped Vickers to put away sight and 
present memory of the great fair woman he had 
left in a pool of hlood on the floor. Now a word 
had brought her back again. And yet speak he 
must. 

“ ’Twas an accident. That’s what I say. No- 
body murdered her.” 

“ But they told me there had been a struggle, 
that her dress was torn, her apron gone. How 
could it have been an accident ?” 

“ Well, there’s no knowin’.” He thought with 
gathering horror of the red-stained apron. If 
there came a flood, and it should wash away the 
stone and the thing should be found ! Then he 
reflected that it could tell nothing new. 

“ Where was she shot ?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know. In the neck.” He spoke 
impatiently, and was in fact in torment. 

“ Did she die at once ?” 

“ Oh, Lord ! how do I know ? I wasn’t there 

Don’t let’s talk about it.” 

18 * 


27 <» 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ But I must know. I must talk. It is needful. 
[ shall never rest until I learn who did it. Why 
cannot you see that I am forever a hunted, ruined 
man until I can put my hand on the brute who 
killed her?” 

“ It won’t he no use. It wasn’t you, that’s sure.” 

Riverius reflected that it was strange how this 
coarse, dull-witted man should be almost alone and 
positive in this belief. 

“I was told that the poor little child found her 
first. IIow pitiful that seems ! Rollins told me 
most of it. He said the child thought the blood 
was paint. How horrible ! And to oall her mother 
and get no answer!” 

Alice sat in the darkness writhing and twisting 
hands wet with the sweat of torture. “ I don’t 
want to talk about it, Mr. Ryverus. I liked that 
woman.” 

“Ho one can like to talk of it; but for me to 
think it over and learn all I can is merely a reason- 
able effort to discover the true murderer. I shall 
have no peace till I find him. I wish I could see 
the place again. A little thinking it over there 
would possibly be of use. What will become of 
poor old half-crazy Philetus ? I think that blind 
man standing in darkness by the dead body and 
the child is the most pitiful ” 

“If you don’t stop,” said Ance, “by heaven 
I’ll kill you !” And he bounded to his feet. 

A sudden wild light of intelligent insight smote 
Riverius as with a rude physical buffet. He too 
arose. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


277 


“ You killed that woman, Ance.” 

“ Yes, I done it.” 

The darkness was profound, and in it the two 
men stood silent a moment. 

“ I am sorry for you, Ance. You could not have 
meant to do it.” 

“ She p’inted the rifle at me, and I tried to take 
it away. It went off, — caught somethin’. Went 
off! — my God ! it went off! Didn’t I say it wer’ 
an accident?” 

Riverius guessed the rest. He was mercifully 
silent. As to Ance, he had dropped again on the 
bed. The confession wrung from him by the rack 
on which the German’s successive comments 
stretched him was simply an indescribable relief. 
He had told it. Another knew it. He had been 
able to explain it, and this man, this haughty gen- 
tleman, was sorry for him, pitied him. There is 
inexplicable mystery in such solace, and it is very 
real. It left Ance disturbed by a clearer sense of 
the ruin he had brought to Philetus. At last he 
said, “ What will you do now ?” 

“You must get away, Ance. I know you have 
told me the truth. How I see why you wanted to 
help me.” 

“ Lord, sir, you don’t think I’d ’a’ bin that mean 
to let ’em hang you for what I didn’t go to do? I 
ain’t that bad.” 

“ I am sure you are not.” nevertheless, it is to 
be doubted if at utmost need Ance would have 
done other than obey the brute instinct of self- 
preservation. “ Once out of this country, you must 


278 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


find some way to clear me. I will think it over. 
I believe you have told me the truth ; and if you 
have not, I must leave you to settle that with God. 
Now I must try to sleep a bit.” 

“ All right, sir. I’ll go out, and keep watch.” 

Then Riverius lay down in the bunk, and at 
least rested; sleep he could not. Before Ance’s 
outburst, the German had begun to have some 
vague suspicion of the truth. For a moment he 
nad expected a life-and-death struggle with the 
man beside him, but instantly this idea was dis- 
pelled, and he saw clearly that the confession had 
left him in a measure less wretched. He himself 
was now forced to seek and keep the company of 
the slayer, to make sure that in the end the truth 
should be made apparent. It seemed to Riverius 
a strange fate. For suppose that Ance had lied, — 
and the business had been bad enough, — here was 
he, a gentleman, aiding the flight of a murderer! 
Nor was it easy to see how, without a free state- 
ment by Ance, Riverius could clear his own good 
name. 

Despite the agony Riverius had inflicted on 
Vickers, and the perilous confession wrung from 
him, the woodman did not for a moment fear 
that the German would betray him. This was 
characteristic of Ance, that he looked for fair play. 
He did not ask for any pledge, but early next morn- 
ing went quietly away on his errand to Mrs. Pres- 
ton. Not having even a pencil, Riverius had been 
forced to send only a verbal message. 

By Vickers’s advice he shut and secured the 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


279 


cabin from within, and waited impatiently for his 
return. The day seemed of dismal length. He 
looked at his watch. It recorded only the hour of 
his plunge into the rapids. He opened it and set 
it in the dulled sunlit window to dry, and glanced 
at it now and then to see if it would revive and go 
to work again. Ance had warned him not to 
smoke. That was hard. He watched a spider and 
rescued a fly, — why, he could not have said. The 
spider should live, he reflected, and, if not con- 
structed to eat turnips, what right had he, Riverius, 
to stop him in the mid-joy of successful fly-stab- 
bing ? When a mosquito fell next to the spider, 
the German looked on unmoved, remembering that 
things of the kind destroyed had of late made life 
a little harder for him. Next he considered as to 
whether this justified his ceasing to act as an in- 
tervening providence as against spiders and in the 
interest of flies and biting things. Comparisons 
between these deaths and the tragedy which had 
involved him arose in his mind, and he reflected 
upon all the vast tyrannical machinery of nature 
implacably grinding out agony. There was time 
indeed for philosophic thought such as Riverius 
well loved, but he laughed when over and over 
amidst some prospering well-linked success in 
binding cause and consequence the sweet notes of 
an old love-song rang in joyful riot through his 
brain. Then of a sudden Bessy was there before 
him in almost natural distinctness, with that pride 
which made her gentle, and such supple grace of 
timid womanhood as led him to reflect with wonder 


280 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


at the courage she had shown. Riverius had, like 
some proud men, hidden deep down in his heart the 
over-sensitive sentiment of a girl. He did not want 
this sweet company here in the brute woodman’s 
cabin. He would have taken it with him out into 
the woods, if it had not been that he desired to run 
no risks for Vickers. At last he fell asleep, tired, 
and yet not unhappy. 

It was ten o’clock when Ance reached Mrs. 
Preston’s. Presently he saw Paul, and said, cau- 
tiously, “ Who’s about, Paul ?” 

“ Ho one but mother, and Becky out in the corn- 
field. Rollins hasn’t come back, nor the men, ex- 
cept Consider, and he has taken Phil over home. 
They are going to bury Miriam out under the pines 
down near the brook. Mother wanted to go, but 
I told her she had better not.” Paul was much 
impressed just now with his own importance. 

“ She didn’t go ?” 

“ Ho. Isn’t it awful, Ance ? You ought to have 
seen poor old Phil. He’s just like — well, just like 
a bird with a broken wing. It’s awful, Ance ! He 
is so helpless, you know ; and if Consider was to 
go off anywhere, I don’t know what he would do. 
He was asking for you. He says you and Con are 
his only friends.” 

“ He said that !” 

“ Yes. Come in.” 

Ance followed him. The bearded red face was 
haggard and strangely white. The eyes were 
watchful and restless. He looked about and now 
and then behind him. At the door he met Ophelia. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


281 


“ How you do, Ance ?” she said. “ Where’s my 
father? Where’s mother ?” 

“ At home,” he answered, hoarsely. 

“ Take me home. Phely wants to see her. 
Phely is very good to-day. Ride Phely on your 
shoulder.” 

Ance, like many rough men, had a liking for 
children; they made some mysterious appeal to 
him ; and at Richmond’s house, when present with 
Philetus, he had been fond of playing with the 
child, and could too well remember how often 
Miriam had watched them, displeased at his pres- 
ence. An overwhelming sense of the moral lone- 
liness which crime inflicts came upon him. He 
liked company, as men do who lack interior re- 
sources, and yet felt that now it was to be feared. 
He longed to talk of his misery, and dreaded op- 
portunity. A horrible desire to tell the child arose 
in his mind. He made no reply to her appeals, but 
went by her in haste, she clinging to his jacket and 
calling, “ Ance, Ance,” as she danced beside him. 
“ When will Ance come to see mother again?” 

“ Take her away, Paul,” said the man. “ Where 
is your mother? I ’ain’t got no time to lose.” 

Paul secured the attention of the little one as his 
mother appeared from her own room, and went out 
with her at a sign from Mrs. Preston. 

“ Sit down, Ance,” she said. “Is there news 
yet ?” 

“ He is in my cabin, safe as long as the fire lasts. 
Rollins and the rest’s got the’r hands full. Further 
away it gits the better fur him. ’Bout Saturday 


282 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


ther’ ain’t no moon to speak on, and then I’ll git 
him down the river. Two days’ run’ll clear us. He 
said I was to tell you it was all right.” 

“ Why did he not write ?” 

“ He hadn’t nothin’ to write with.” 

“ He will have to hide to-day and until day after 
to-morrow night.” 

“ If the men git round, he’ll have to lay by longer. 
I ain’t goin’ to run no resk.” Then he paused. 
“ Did Paul cut away that air deer-thong ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then he done me a service. Wilson he come 
back and looked. You ought to ’a’ heerd him 
tellin’ the men how Ryverus tripped him up.” And 
Ance grinned and was suddenly surprised at his 
own mirth. 

“ I owe you a great debt,” she said, rising and 
seeking his hand. He took it eagerly. “ A debt 
I shall never forget, — never. If ever I can help 
you, I will do it. Do you want money?” 

“ Ho; Mr. Ryverus he’s got lots, he says.” 

“ One thing more. Don’t drink, Ance. I can’t 
help thinking it was some drunken lumberman did 
that awful thing. Think how he must feel. I 
should think it would punish him enough only to 
see poor old Phil and that child.” 

“ Ef he was drunk it wouldn’t be the same as ef 
he was sober.” 

“ Ho ; hut every wise man ought to know that 
there is murder and every other crime in the 
whiskey-jug. For God’s sake, don’t drink any 
more. Let this thing warn you. Philetus likes 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


283 


you, and, so far, you have only used his liking to 
make him drink.” 

44 That’s so. I don’t deny it none.” 

“ And did he not save your life once ? I have 
heard so.” 

“ Yes.” 

44 Promise me.” 

44 I’ll never touch liquor ag’in, so help me God!” 

44 And come over to-morrow, if you can.” 

“ Yes, ma’am, ef I kin.” He went out, and by 
and by came hack. “You’ve got to look sharp 
for 4 drop-fires,’ Mrs. Preston. Them sparks goes 
up, and comes down a man don’t know where. It’s 
bin a awful fire. The old burned tracks stayed it 
to the easterd; but you can’t tell.” 

44 How far will it burn, Ance ?” 

44 Lord knows.” She stood thoughtful as he 
went out. In the air he paused, took oft* his cap, 
looked up, and, as if registering an oath, said, 
44 I’ve touched my last liquor. Hadn’t bin for 
liquor, it mightn’t of bin.” Then he walked over 
to Ophelia, picked her up, kissed her, and set her 
down. 

44 Mother says Phely mustn’t kiss you. Mother 
says you’re bad.” 

44 1 was,” he said, and walked away, Paul mean 
while looking after him, puzzled and curious. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


Ance did not return. To avoid suspicion, he 
found it needful to see Rollins and ask for some 
work. Meanwhile, Mrs. Preston became more 
ani more anxious. Xow and then a lumberman 
came by, and she learned to her comfort that Rive- 
rius had not been heard from, and that the fire 
had been checked by old burnt districts and the 
river. An immense belt of ruin, however, lay to 
the northeast, and oxen, sleds, and cabins had gone. 
As yet a heavy pall of smoke, now high in air, 
hung over the whole land, and all things looked 
strange in the sallow sunlight which filtered through 
it. As the dry weather persisted, there was still 
peril and alarm, and every one knew that at any 
moment the fire might renew its ravage. Philetus 
was still absent, and the child’s pretty and incessant 
talk disturbed and annoyed Mrs. Preston. At last, 
on the third day, Paul proposed to take the little 
one to pick berries. His mother gladly assented. 

“ Where will you go ?” she said. 

“ Oh, down to Laurel Mountain.” 

“ This side only.” 

“Yes; they’re plenty in the lower gorge.” 

“Well, don’t go far, and on no account on the 
mountain.” 

She had told Paul nothing of Riverius’s place of 
hiding, thinking it best to keep it to herself. He 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


285 


only knew that their friend had escaped. The 
charge against him made but slight impression on 
Paul, and his mother, refusing to discuss it, had 
scornfully put the matter aside. She had at once 
said, as she had done to Alice, that the death of 
Miriam lay at the door of some one of the many 
villains who found in the woods a shelter and a 
means of living out of reach of the civilization 
which had been too restrictive for their wants or 
passions. 

Riverius was much on Paul’s mind, and now he 
went away with Ophelia thoughtful of his friend 
and gladly relieving his mother of the child, whose 
talk of the dead Miriam more and more disturbed 
Mrs. Preston as her gathering anxiety for Riverius 
increased. She, too, understood very well the doubt- 
ful position he now held. She reasoned on it, how- 
ever, with less pain than it gave him, and was more 
concerned as to his present safety. 

As Paul and Ophelia wandered along, the boy 
gave himself up at last to her pretty, caressingly 
persistent ways, and ceased to think of the German, 
the murder, or the tire. On the lower slopes the 
huckleberries were still abundant. After a while 
they climbed a little, and, as usual at this season, 
found the berries still more plenty as they rose. 
At last Paul sat down and leaned back against 
a mossy old beech-trunk. It was very comfort- 
able, and the fair Ophelia had quite exhausted 
him by her quest for berries and her craving for 
attention. lie watched her awhile as she went to 
and fro, pleased with the tints of the sumach, and 


286 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


gathering the leaves of reddening gum-trees. Now 
and then the smoke, which everywhere since the 
fire began was at times unpleasantly thick, became 
somewhat more dense. The afternoon had worn 
away, and now, although it was but six o’clock, the 
day seemed near its close. Looking up, Paul saw 
that the sky was overcast, and noted here and there 
in the woods the trees swaying in little gusts of 
wind which appeared to blow up the river, and 
which, as he lay and thought, seemed to him to ex- 
plain the increase of the smokiness, now very ob- 
vious. It would rain, perhaps, and that was all — or 
at least the last thing — he could afterwards recall. 
For three nights he had been up late and risen early. 
Twice he had been aroused by Becky or his mother 
and sent out to see if the a drop-fires” had by chance 
fallen anywhere near them. His head fell. He 
half roused himself, saw Phely near by, fell off 
again, and slept as only a tired boy can sleep. 
When at last he awakened, he leaped to his feet 
in alarm. The air was more full of smoke. It 
seemed to be moving towards him in irregular 
currents. Overhead the sky was darkening fast 
with the gathering clouds of a summer thunder- 
storm. Now and then sudden puffs of wind shook 
the lower trees about him, and overhead the tall 
trees swayed, roaring in the strong upper currents 
of the coming storm. Ophelia was gone. He 
looked about him, searching the vistas in vain. 
He called aloud, but got no answer. He ran hither 
and thither, sadly perplexed, and full of self-re- 
proaches. At last, in despair, he climbed a dead 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


287 


tree -and called again and again. Then he heard, 
or thought he heard, a faint cry from the steep 
slope above. Meanwhile, the increasing smoke 
which came over the hill and through the gorges 
alarmed him. There must have been a new lire 
awakened by the aid of the storm, and if so it 
would surely sweep through the deep ravines full 
of birches and pines which on either side of the 
mountain lay nearly parallel with the river. He 
was down in a moment and away up the hill. As 
he went, swirls of smoke came around the moun- 
tain on both sides. He pushed on, increasingly 
anxious. As he climbed upward he saw of a 
sudden a dull glare of light on his left and far 
away. He called anew, and, getting no answer, 
ran on, tearing through the dense laurels. He was 
now on the granite summit of a lower knob of the 
mountain, which still rose some two hundred feet 
above him. He could dimly see at times through 
the thickening smoke the line of the lumber-slide. 
He shouted till he was hoarse, and set out down 
the side of the intervening gorge. Suddenly a 
blast of smoke nearly blinded him, and he paused. 
It was hot, and the sparks were falling thick about 
him, whilst the wind of the coming tempest roared 
in the pines above his head. He saw that they 
came directly over the mountain-top. At last, worn 
out, he stopped, and called once more. As he stood, 
another tierce gust went over him, and he saw be- 
tween him and the river a half-dozen birch-trees 
flaming upwards with the fierce howl he knew so 
well. At times the smoke, heaving like sea-waves, 

19 


288 


FAR IN THE FOREST 1 


revealed again and again these plumes of fire, all 
of them, as he guessed, quite near the river. A 
moment after, he reeled, blinded, coughing and 
gasping in the acrid fumes. This time it was 
blast from around the landward side of the hill. 
He fell on his face for breathing-space, knowing 
well that the heated smoke would lie above him. 
For the time he was safe, and more easy. A foot 
or more above his head the air was almost clear. 
He drew long breaths, and gathered himself for 
decisive action. To go on was to die, unless he 
could win the bold summit before the fire swept 
around the mountain, and then, even there, he felt 
that he would not be able to decide what to do, 
and was well aware that he had no time to lose. 
To wait was impossible ; and Ophelia ! Meanwhile, 
as he lay, he heard a fierce rush through the laurels, 
and caught a glimpse of a flying buck. A rabbit 
jumped aside from his lifted head, a huge rattle- 
snake fled swiftly by, passing under his arm, eager 
only to escape, careless of its human foe. As Paul 
rose, fierce lightning flashed overhead, instantly 
followed by the echoing roll of thunder, and the 
storm-wind rushing over the rounded mountain- 
top drew the fire into the traversing gorges, along 
which it swept roaring as if through vast chim- 
neys. The heat was every instant greater, and over 
him the dusking heavens were reddening fast. He 
still hesitated. His inborn hatred of defeat was 
backed by a terrible sense of his failure to care for 
the child. Something struck his arm. It was a 
scorched, half-choked squirrel. Tamed by the fire, 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


289 


the wild little savage clung to his arm. The next 
moment a man shot by him in swift flight down the 
hill. Paul called, turning as he did so, “ Halloo !” 
The man stopped just below him, out of sight in 
the dense vapors. 

“ Who is it ? Where are you ?” 

“It’s Riverius,” cried Paul. “ I, — I!” he cried. 
“ It’s Paul ! Pll come !” And he bounded down 
the rocks, slipping, and at last rolled over at the 
feet of the German, who instantly pulled him up. 

“ Come,” he said. “ Quick, at once. Run. We 
have not a minute to lose. Mein Gott, what a 
time !” Paul tried to speak, hut choked and could 
only obey. And now to either side the woods a 
quarter of a mile away were ablaze, and over them, 
here and there, the dry pine-tops were aflame, and 
sparks and lighted twigs falling around them found 
new fuel in the dry moss and half-baked pine- 
needles. At last, breathless, they won the lower 
levels and got among the deciduous maples. The 
smoke was thinner, the trees less numerous. They 
caught glad chests-full of clearer air. 

Riverius paused. “ Where is your mother?” 

Paul pointed. He could not yet speak. 

“ At home. We must reach her. She must cross 
the river at once. Every stick on this side will go. 
Come.” * 

“ Stop ! stop !” the boy managed to cry out. 

“ Well, quick.” 

“ I was with Phely. I fell asleep. She got away. 
I lost her. Oh, Mr. Riverius, it was my fault. I 
wish I was dead !” 


290 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Dead ! Himmel ! death cures no mistakes. 
Come.” And he strode away. “We must think 
of yonr mother. Can you run ?” 

They bounded over the snake fence, ran across 
the clearing, and then met Becky. 

“ Mrs. Preston she’s down at the dug-out,” she 
cried. “ She left me to tell Paul. She was afeerd 
for Paul.” The woman looked curiously at Rive- 
rius. “ I wouldn’t go over the river,” she said. 
“ Rollins has crossed, and I see Consider and Phil 
come down in a dug-out. Guess they’d a notion to 
save the wood-shoot. Anyways, they’re there.” 
And she pointed across the Alleghany. 

“ Mein gute Becky,” said Riverius, coolly, “ to be 
hanged is unpleasant; to be burned alive worse. 
I propose neither. Mind, you have not seen me.” 

“I ain’t no fool, Mr. Ryverus.” 

“Good!” 

They had talked as they hastened towards the 
Alleghany. The circuit of the mountain a half- 
mile away to left was a belt of growing flame, least 
towards the river, where the trees were mostly ma- 
ples and cherry. At the boat stood Mrs. Preston. 

“ Where is Ophelia ?” she said. 

Paul pointed to the mountain and burst into tears. 

“ Don’t talk now,” said Riverius. “ The boy 
behaved like a man, — like a brave man. — Come, 
take over your mother and Becky, Paul. Say you 
are going back for these blankets; you forgot 
them. Leave them here, Becky. Now oft' with 
you, Paul.” 

As he spoke, the dug-out shot out athwart the 


FAR IN THE FOREST 


291 


stream. The smoke rolling up the river hid them 
from view. Caught by the downward rush of the 
rapids, it was shot upward and rolled curling over 
on the waves, — a strange sight for one more at ease 
to note it. “ Wet something,” he called after them. 
“ Cover your mouths.” They obeyed him, and 
were gone across and down the stream, guided by 
Paul’s agile figure and quick-falling pole. Riverius 
threw himself on the edge and drew long breaths. 

In an hour or less, Paul came back. “ Now up 
stream,” said Riverius, leaping into the boat and 
seizing a pole. “ I will leave you two miles above, 
at Split Rock. To-night about ten fetch me the 
dug-out, and I will risk a run down stream alone.” 
lie was all energy, quiet and self-possessed. As 
they landed, he said, “Paul, I have not had a mo- 
ment to tell you that Alice is on the mountain. 
I thought he had followed me. He was at my side 
when we saw we had to leave. Then I heard him 
say something, and missed him. He is too clever 
a woodman to be caught, and I think he will get 
out. However, it is as God wills.” 

“ And Phely ?” 

“ Ah, who can say ? Don’t cry, my boy. Trouble 
comes to us all. Look well after your mother. And 
if the river seems too thick with smoke, don’t re- 
turn for me ; don’t venture. I will find my way 
down the banks. Good-by, and God keep and help 
you !” 

Paul silently wrung his hand, and the boat darted 
away into the rolling smoke. 


19 * 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


When Ance turned back from their downward 
flight, it was with a strange wild joy in his heart, 
lie had heard, with his well-trained sense, a human 
cry in the gorge. Calling to Riverius to go on, he 
turned to the left and bounded down the craggy 
slope with a word or two more which escaped his 
companion. Then he paused. The smoke was 
stifling, and far worse than on the granite summit. 
Inland, where the country fell away from the moun- 
tain, there were for a long distance only low bushes, 
and the fire was swiftly sweeping around them. 
The cry was heard again. 

“ It’s Phely ! It’s Phely, for sure ! ” Seeing 
little, he dashed madly down the slope, gasping for 
breath and beating the laurels aside as he went. 
Ah! He had her in his arms, a scared, sobbing, 
half-choked little creature. Turning, the man fled 
in haste up the rocks. On all sides there was fire. 
Again he ran up the main mountain-side, and at 
last came out on the bare top at the head of the slide. 
He knew at once that he was trapped, and that soon 
the fierce wind, which now and then dropped a 
deluge of sparks around, and the flame and smoke 
from the southwest, would make life impossible. 
He set the child down, and for an instant stood 
still in perplexity. The next moment he turned 
and stooped to see more clearly. A dozen axes lay 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


293 


under the log-shoot. He drove one deep into the 
bottom logs of the slide. Then with furious energy 
he dragged a piece of squared log, cut to use in 
mending the slide, up on the short inclined plane 
at its head. He pushed it down until it stayed 
against the axe. He lifted a second timber and 
slid it down beside - it. Ho man on the broad Alle- 
ghany but Ance could have done the thing, nor he, 
perhaps, under other circumstances. At the upper 
ends of the logs were the auger-holes bored to re- 
ceive the spikes meant to bind them fast when 
used. He remembered the day he had bored them, 
— the day before he had last seen Miriam. He 
could not find the spikes, owing to the blinding 
gusts of smoke, hut there were axe-helves at his 
feet, and two he drove, blow on blow, into the 
auger-holes. Then he ran back to a lumber-pile, 
groped about, and found some ox-harness. He cut 
loose the hide traces, stumbled back again, reeling 
and half blinded, and, shutting his eyes, skilfully 
fastened the traces firmly about the axe-helves so 
as to bind the two logs together. Hext he took 
oft* his coat, seized the weeping half-strangled child, 
and sat down on the two logs he had thus 
united. For a moment he looked about him. 
There was no fire visibly nearer on three sides 
than two hundred yards, but as to this he could 
only guess or see dimly as the swirling smoke per- 
mitted. Certainly the bushy, stone-laden summit 
was clear as yet. What lay between him and the 
river he could not tell, but above the rolling storm- 
driven smoke-clouds there was an ominous red 


294 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


light. So far he had acted with remarkable de- 
cisiveness. The means were familiar; the bold 
action he contemplated was in accord with the 
fearlessness of his character. As he sat on the 
logs, dealing with the slight hesitation which now 
disturbed his purpose, the gray smoke was dense 
about him. His eyes watered. He could see noth- 
ing beyond a dozen feet, except the wavering glare 
overhead and now and then the lines of orange- 
red the lightning cast athwart the sky. A few 
large drops of rain fell. Should he risk the ven- 
ture and stay? Had he been alone, this would 
have been his choice. He did not underestimate 
the peril of the other choice. He sat leaning for- 
ward, grasping the handle of the axe which alone 
held fast the logs beneath him. A fiercer rush 
of wind over the hill-top brought more rain, but, 
striking the southwestern slope, sent the marching 
blaze of distorted spirals of crimson and yellow 
far up into the sky. He bent down and saw the 
white face of the child, one cheek a fiery red, 
the mouth convulsed. “Too late!” he cried, and 
quickly wrapped his coat fold on fold over the 
child’s face. Then, with one broad hand pressing 
the garment firmly against Phely’s face, with the 
other he loosened the staying axe with a quick 
motion and cast it from him. The timbers did not 
move. He lifted himself and pushed at the raised 
side of the slide. They started. How slow, he 
thought. Through the smoke which let nothing 
he seen ten feet away the great squared logs slid, 
gathering impetus as they went. Open-eyed, half 


FAR IN THE FOREST . 


295 


blind, Alice stared ahead. Quick and quicker they 
shot through the sombre cloud-darkened twilight. 
In a few seconds the speed was awful. The trees 
here and there below them in the gorges were 
ablaze, the heat intense. As he felt the influence 
of the single curve dangerously sway him, the man 
fell back flat and caught at the side of the timber 
he was lying on. His hand was crushed, but they 
were not thrown out. Then there was a blinding 
rush, swift as an eagle’s swoop. He clasped both 
hands over the child’s mouth and nose, gave one 
fierce scream of torture as they flashed through 
a blazing belt of pine and birch, and instantly 
after, with garments on fire, shot oft' the end of the 
slide, and, hurled headlong, fell twenty feet into 
deep water. He rose to the top and lifted the 
child above the surface. Was it dead? Would it 
live ? He knew not. The cool water eased him, 
and there was little or no smoke on the level of 
the deep, comparatively quiet pool. He could dimly 
see lights on the shore. It was all he could do to 
make the land. He paused on the edge as he 
staggered out. Ah ! the child was struggling, 
alive, crying wildly. Then he tried to shout for 
help, but could make only a hoarse, hollow sound. 
Why was he so weak? Gasping for breath, he 
stumbled along, climbed the bank, saw a light, and 
ran pitching to right and left like one drunk. Sud- 
denly he was aware of a camp-fire, voices, Philetus, 
Rollins, Paul. He saw no more, but fell headlong 
at their feet, as they started up, the child, little the 
worse for the ordeal, rolling from his grasp. 


296 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ My God ! he’s saved it !” said Mrs. Preston, as 
she lifted Phely. 

“ He is burnt,” said Paul, as Rollins pushed him 
aside and knelt down by Ance to examine him. 

Paul ran to Philetus. “ She’s saved, — saved !” 
cried the boy. “ Oh, thank God, Philetus, she’s 
saved ! Mother, bring her here.” 

The old man stood still. “ Where be the maid?” 
he said. 

“ Here,” returned Mrs. Preston. 

He took Phely in his arms, the child still dazed 
and crying, as he covered her face with kisses. 

“ Take her, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Preston. 
“ Who saved her ? Who fetched her out ?” 

“ Ance,” she replied. 

“ Heaven ain’t good enough for that man. Take 
me to him,” putting out his hand. Consider un- 
derstood him. “ This way, Phil,” he said, and led 
him to Ance, who was lying near the fire, groaning, 
and trying to speak. Philetus knelt down. 

“ Here, take some whiskey,” said Rollins, lifting 
Vickers’s head. He swallowed a mouthful, and 
gave a shrill cry of pain, thrusting the cup away. 

“ He’s burned in’ardlyff’ said Rollins. “ Get 
some water. Lord ! and his face, too.” The water 
he took with effort. 

“ Pm done for,” he moaned, hoarsely, opening 
his eyes and groping about with his sound hand. 
“ Air that you, Phil ?” 

“ It’s me, Ance.” 

“ Where’s Ryverus ?” 

“ What’s that he says ?” cried Rollins. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


297 


“ He wants Ryverus,” returned Philetus. “ God, 
he knows. lie’s a-sayin’ somethin’.” 

“Ryverus! Fetch Ryverus! Fetch him afore 
I die.” 

“ He isn’t here,” said Rollins, kneeling beside 
him, and greatly puzzled. 

“ Then Phil — Phil Where’s Phil ? Oh, my 

God, my throat!” He spoke louder, writhing in 
anguish. Phil bent over him, and the hurt man 
drew him closer, an arm under his neck. 

“I done it, Phil. ’Twasn’t him. I didn’t go 
to. That’s why I got him off. Under the stone, 
— under the stone in the brook by the blazed 
hickory, — her apron. 0 Lord, forgive me. You 
jus’ curse me, Phil, and let me die.” 

“ He done it. ’Twasn’t Ryverus,” said Philetus, 
raising his plear, sightless eyes, while speechless 
amazement fell for an instant upon the listening 
group. 

“ Phil ! Phil !” said Alice. The blind man bent 
down. “You won’t curse me? I giv’ you the 
child.” 

“ You didn’t go to hurt her. I ain’t no harder 
nor Christ, Anee.” And he took the hand of the 
dying man, who lay gasping, but said no more. 

Mrs. Preston moved over to Rollins. “ Are you 
satisfied ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then send and get Mr. Riverius. Paul knows.” 

“ Come, Paul, I’ll go myself,” cried Rollins. 
“ Come.” And he hurried to the boat. 

Those who were left tried to help the man at 




298 far in the forest. 

their feet, but in vain. The red, scorched face moved 
now and then, contorted by pain which even the anaes- 
thesia of growing suffocation could not wholly relieve. 

His breath came and went, and at times appeared 
to have ceased forever; after each long interval it 
came again quicker and shorter. 

Elizabeth Preston sat beside him, pitiful, without 
power to aid the man who had sinned, suffered, and 
was paying the death price for the life of the child 
he had saved. Pliiletus leaned against a tree, self- 
absorbed and motionless. His little Ophelia, wet and 
scared into silence, lay at his feet, wrapped in a 
blanket, and away from the view of torment none 
knew how to lessen. Over them all hung a gray pall 
of smoke, now thick, now thin. The flaring camp- 
fire lit this strange scene, where was no sound save 
the crackling of burning logs, the dull roar of the 
rapids, and now and then a groan wrung out by 
torture such as no man can bear in soundless endur- 
ance. Once the dying man raised himself on his 
elbows and murmured hoarsely: 

“ Fetch Ryverus. Where is he ? ” 

At last the noise of clinking poles came up from 
the smoke-hidden stream. The group opened as 
Riverius, advancing with rapid steps, knelt down on 
the sod beside Ance. 

“ Do you know me, Ance ? ” 

A smile went over the red face on which the Ger- 
man gazed. 

“ Yes, you’re — you’re Ryverus.” 

“ Water, quick! water,” said Riverius. He moist- 
ened the hot, black lips. 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


299 


11 It is I, Alice. What is it I can do for you ? ” 
Twice in the effort to speak Ance failed. Riverius 
bent lower to catch what he was trying to say. 

“ What is it, Ance ? ” 

“ I want to say I done it. I didn’t go to do it. 
Christ ! I told ’em. They know.” 

“ Yes, yes, I too know. We all know. What else 
is there % ” 

“ I’d of liked to wrastle a fall with you.” 

Riverius sat mute, holding the scorched hand. 
Ance drew a long breath. Those who looked on 
watched to see his strong chest rise again. A minute 
passed. Riverius rose. 

u He is dead,” he said. 11 God rest his soul ! ” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


A year and three months had gone by when Johan 
Riverius and his wife stood in a terraced garden 
overlooking vine-clad hillsides and the half-seen 
windings of a little Saxon river. 

Elizabeth Preston had found in the German gen- 
tleman the true companion of a life to be satisfied 
with nothing else than the best honesties of head 
and heart. Happiness and prosperity had enriched 
the woman with a riper form, and that serenity of 
face without which beauty is impossible. So thought 
the man at her side. 

“Ah!” he said, “there is Paul on his pony. He 
will ride well in time. There is a good soldier in 
that boy. Some day my old regiment will have him.” 

“ No, no,” she said. “ His career will be at home, 
not here. I shall harden my heart and bid him go 
when the time comes.” 

“Ah, well,” returned Riverius, “the day is not 
yet, and to harden thy heart when it comes — per- 
haps. What of mine I love the boy well.” 

The woman smiled. “ I shall have my way. I can 
make reason hammer my heart hard enough if there 
be need. When the time comes, Johan, you will 
make it easy. I sometimes think I am too indulgent 
with him nowadays, but love and happiness play 
tricks with one’s moral nature.” She stood still, of a 
sudden thoughtful. 


FA 11 IN THE FOEEST. 


301 


“ Ah, Bess, Bess, I know that look ! Now again you 
are thinking that once in yonr life you failed of 
truth* 

“ Yes ; it does not trouble me now, hut it does come 
hack to my memory often, like a ghost I do not fear, 
hut cannot get rid of.” 

“ Would you do it again ? ” 

“ Yes, a thousand times.” 

“.Then that is enough; and to comfort you, all the 
casuists are on the side of that good, stout lie. Let 
the past hury its dead sins. The graveyard for thy 
wicked memories need not be large.” 

“But, Johan — ■” 

“No, no,” he urged, smiling. “We will talk of 
more pleasant things.” 

“ But I must talk. There are things from which 
escape is not easy. Over and over you have hid me 
cease when I have sorrowed at the thought of the 
vast ruin I made to save you. I am grieved, hut I 
do not repent. I dream about it ; it will come back.” 

“ Himmel! to he haunted this way by all one’s past 
sins! I have news for you that should lay all thy 
ghosts. I have waited, hut to-day I can with free- 
dom speak. I had to wait, and now we will have to 
he economical for two or three years.” 

“Why, Johan? But that matters little. Economy 
does not alarm me. What is it? Do not keep me 
waiting. I am — I am a little sensitive just now. 
Small things disturb me.” 

He turned and for a moment considered her anx- 
iously. “ What is it, .my dear ? ” She looked to he in 
perfect health. 


302 


FAR IN THE FOREST. 


“ Oh, nothing.” 

“ Good ! I have paid Rollins all, and more than 
all, the fire cost him. I have left you in debt to no 
man. Consider Kinsman is in charge of the new 
mill, with Rollins to oversee my affairs. Poor old 
Philetus Richmond is cared for in an asylum — a 
hopeless case; and little Ophelia the good German 
sisters at Lilitz will educate. Are you satisfied ¥ ” 
“Oh, Johan! And I must have troubled you. 
This was what I wanted.” 

He smiled. “ And what interest am I to have on 
all this money which goes to settle your debts ¥ ” 

“ This,” she said, and whispered in his ear, flushing 
as she told her mother-secret. 

“ Only this was wanting,” he said. “ Thank God ! ” 
And he kissed her. 


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